Magnolia or Michelia?

Michelia used to be a separate genus because they had numerous flowers per stem whereas magnolias were supposed to only have one bloom at the tip of the stem – except that some of them don’t! So they merged them. This is a great sadness to me as it means we’ve lost the name of Pier Antonio Micheli (1679–1737). There is a street named after him in the Florence (photo on the left), where he was the curator of the botanic garden. I can remember asking passing students whether we should pronounce his name as Meesh–el, Meek–el or Mike–eel. Not the latter they all said, and most likely it should be Meek, but it’s irrelevant now the botanists have done away with the genus.