I was in Jacksonville, FL a month ago, and I saw a very nice flowering tree...?

Unfortunately, I could not get out to take a photo of it. This tree was growing in shade/partial shade. It was about 30-40 ft tall. It had beautiful white flowers. The flowers were so big that I was able to see the petals from the road. There were about 5 or 6 very large petals. The leaves looked like gardenia leaves (you know they are a little bit shiny), but we were traveling on the road, so I wasn't able to observe it closely. While in Jacksonville, I saw several trees like this.



Every time I was able to recognize them easily because their large white blooms stood out in the forest. They were growing in undeveloped foresty areas. As we headed west, I saw fewer of them. Finally, when we were about 50 miles away from Jacksonville, I couldn't see any more trees like this. I kept looking but there was none. I am surpirsed that this tree only grows in Jacksonville area. Can somebody tell me what tree it is? I would like to know more about it...
I was in Jacksonville, FL a month ago, and I saw a very nice flowering tree...?
it might have been a black doris plum tree, but black dorises have lots of small blossoms.



thats what a black doris looks like ===%26gt;http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/...



or i may have been a flowering dogwood--http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/trees/cofl16...



it also could have been a cherry blossom tree. I did a lot of researching for you but I couldnt find a tree that met your description exactly.
Reply:Flowering dogwood is a pretty common understory tree with big white flowers (actually they're bracts) but I would think you'd see that elsewhere as well. You could check other photos at the site (I also linked to tung oil tree) and see if anything fits, but I say dogwood based on your description.