I think this is a member of the magnolia family but the bloom is made up of a cluster of small white flowers. They started out at least a month ago by being a reddish cone-shaped bloom, then matured into this mass of greenish-white. My husband took this picture yesterday. We are in zone 7 near Atlanta. The new leaves that are growing now are a gorgeous light green and mature to dark green. It is also losing some leaves at the same time which turn red before they drop. It really puts on a pretty show -- it's about 20 ft. tall now and is at least 20 yrs. old. I think I have seen an antique English botanical print on either wallpaper or a chair that featured this tree, but I think it has fallen out of favor because I can't find it in any catalogs. I have some more photos of it if anyone wants to see them to better identify it. The mature leaves are about 6 inches long.
