Since mulan is princess of the month, here some thoughts about which flor fits her the best. The movie, after all, offers some choices. The most obvious one is the magnolia, since that’s the translation of the name Mulan.

Then there is the white flor mulan wears in her hair when she meets the matchmaker – the same flor she leaves behind when she goes to war. I’m not sure what kind of flor that’s suppose to be. I first considered lotus (since the lotus is such a reveled flor in Asia and gets often connected to the gods), but a lotus has más petals. A white cereza, cerezo blossom would have exactly five petals, but they would be más round. There are some similarities with a white magnolia flor o a lily, but again, both have más petals. My best guess is the azalea - a white azalea has five petals, looks very similiar, but even más important, in China they are a symbol for womanhood (they also symbolize taking care, temperance and fragility, más o less everything mulan is expected to be).

And finally, the most important of all, the flor her father points out to her. I originally assumed that they are sitting under a cereza, cerezo árbol – I think mostly because the cereza, cerezo blossom is such a big deal in japón and there are festivals surrounding it in China, too. But the “Hanami” in japón is the one with the long tradition, while China just was inspired por it. Plus, the longer I look at it, the más I get the impression that those blossoms are supposed to be magnolias. tu can compare it yourself to the picture of some magnolias at the right, the similiarity is undeniable. Also it would make the whole scene so much más meaningful, if her father points out a late blooming "Mulan" instead of a misceláneo flower. But the scripts of "Mulan" I have found so far don't specify, there is only "blossoms" written, so unless the animators give an answer, we'll never know for sure.

But I admit I like cereza, cerezo blossoms better for Mulan, since magnolias are fairly sensitive flowers, and mulan is everything but sensitive. cereza, cerezo blossoms have three different meaning in the language of flowers: They stand for a good education, transience of life (Japan) and feminine beauty (China). All those meanings fit mulan and her story nearly perfectly, although the meaning of magnolias (love of nature) works too.
In the end, I couldn’t really decide - So I made two wallpapers, one with cereza, cerezo blossoms and one with magnolias, to honor the beauty of a late blooming flower.