(Warning- we have a pretty wide and random sphere of interests and will discuss them ad nauseum with very little prompting so you might want to brace yourself for Grandpa Simpson-styles digression.)
On the horticultural front, the Yulan Magnolia is a tough customer, enduring hail and horrible spring weather to produce this display. It is (in my experience) far more indifferent to shade, dry, crap soil and general hardship (ie our garden) than the rest of its ilk, with the exception of the cultivar magnolia x 'black tulip', which we have admired for the same reasons.
But if it was some wilting princess requiring round the clock punkah and feather pillows I would still try to grow it. What could be more primavera than this luminous, dove-white profusion, doused in those faint, reserved magnolia spices and champaca sweetness, all poised on the bare (hence denudata) trellis of its silky black branches? It is unbelievably elegant, to the point of appearing almost mannered, holding its blooms cupped like an offering to loftier beings unless you are lucky enough to find a low branch, in which case you might share in such sacred largesse.
I can stand under this tree and stare through its blooms and hear 'Undo' by Björk and weep tears of embarrassing joy.