Magnolias at Chollipo Arboretum

There is something magical about magnolias. Magnolias were among the first flowers on Earth, and survived through millions of years. Today, there are more than 450 different types of magnolias in the Chollipo Arboretum, a couple of hours south of Seoul. It's on the beach, just north of a popular summer resort. The island just outside is part of the arboretum, which consists of seven different lots of land.

We went with RAS, Royal Asiatic Society, on an excursion by bus to Chollipo last weekend. It was worth it just to get out of Seoul, but the day proved to be even better than we had hoped for. Weather was nice, and we could stroll in the forest, admiring the trees and flowers.

This will probably bring me accusations of being a nature romanticist, but if you click on the photos you can see bigger versions of them. I normally don't do this on the blog, but I actually liked the way some of them came out. Mappelthorpe or Georgia O'Keefe? Your choice.

The guy who founded Chollipo Arboretum was Carl Ferris Miller, or Min Pyong-gal (1921–2002). He was an American who came to Korea with the US Army 1945, fell in love with the country, and became Korean citizen 1979. The other way around is more common. He built up a considerable fortune in Korea, and used most of it to buy land and collect trees. You can do a lot worse than than.

The Chollipo Arboretum is not the biggest arboretum in Korea, but it has a collection of 6.500 taxa (different plants/trees). Magnolias and Camellias are two specialities of Chollipo. The Camellia japonica is in full bloom at the same time as the magnolias.

Magnolias are sturdy trees, and some even grow in the northern parts of Sweden. The most striking feature is the flowers that adorn the trees long before there are any leaves in spring. In Stockholm, the Japanese magnolia planted 1933 in Vitabergsparken blossoms every spring, an event that is celebrated with much singing by the locals (sometimes standing in the snow and admiring the white flowers). In our little village in France we also have white magnolias in the village square.