Thank you! I thought it was a type of magnolia, but someone told me no – so I am glad I asked the experts!

Magnolia grandiflora – one of the great ornamentals of the south, with wonderfully fragrant, large, cream-colored blooms in the spring, decorative seed cones in the fall, and dark green waxy leaves year-round. There has been a recent trend towards planting dwarf cultivars such as ‘Little Gem’, often pruned to expose the trunk, which is unfortunate in my opinion, as they lack the stately grace and grandeur of mature standard-size trees (perhaps, though, I am letting my childhood love of climbing magnolias cloud my thinking).

Magnolia grandiflora or Southern Magnolia. They say that if you scarify the seeds, they’ll come up, I haven’t found that to work… Maybe you can get better results.