The astounding ivory-colored flower, which blooms in May, can be 10 inches in diameter and sends off a powerful spicy fragrance. Wonderful old magnolias can be spotted adding their aplomb to the front yards of Uptown New Orleans. Banana trees aren't really trees because they don't have woody trunks, and the fruit they bear is a variety of banana called plantain, which must be cooked to be eaten. The inverted red bulb is actually the flower, from which the bananas grow. The average height of the tree is 10 to 15 feet.
Live oaks are powerful trees, frequently tearing up the sidewalks laid over their roots.
But their physical power can't compare with their visual power, with their tangle of ancient, gnarled branches tat swoop out and sometimes down, almost to the ground. Their leaves are small and rather ordinary. The most fabulous live oaks are in City Park and Audubon Park, in the Garden District and lining St. Charles Avenue.