Colour botanical tattoo of a magnolia branch with pink open blooms and olive buds, shown on the forearm.

Magnolia branch on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A magnolia branch runs diagonally across the forearm, with one open pink-mauve bloom on the right and two closed buds with fuzzy olive-green sepals on the left. Dark brown outlines and soft shading give the petals and stems a naturalistic, illustrative finish, with a few small green leaves. The colour is concentrated in the blooms, and the plain white fabric behind the arm keeps the focus on the tattoo.

Botanical Forearm Magnolia Flower Bloom Bud Branch Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The magnolia by the south wall came out early this year, two weeks before the frost men said it would, and Mother stood at the kitchen window in her good cardigan and wouldn't let anyone touch the kettle until she'd counted the blooms. Eleven. She wrote the number on the back of a seed packet and pinned it above the sink, the way she used to pin your school reports, as if the tree might be held to account.

You asked in your last letter whether the orchard is still standing. It is, though the pear rows on the lower field have gone to bramble, and Mr Ashby's boy sold the good ladder for scrap. The buds on the magnolia are still fuzzy and olive-green, nothing like the pink you'd remember, but Mother says they open slowly and then all at once, like a room full of people who've been waiting to be introduced.

I took a cutting on Sunday, a short grey branch with two shut buds and a leaf still hanging from it, and wrapped it in a damp tea towel for the train. I know you won't have room on the windowsill in that flat, but put it in a glass of water anyway. Watch what it does. I'd like to hear, by return, which bloom goes first.

Your sister, Nell