Wooden flowers

Last summer I noticed some spectacular flowers on a tree which turned out to be a liriodendron tulipifera, subsequently spotted in various other places, not least Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where the tree in question had been planted by a royal duke.

Now, some months after the leaves dropped, I get around to noticing that the shells of the flowers, now a lignified brown, are still there. And a lot more of them than I would have thought.

Couldn't see anything fruit-like, but I shall take another look next time I am down.

PS: idly checking in wikipedia, I find to my surprise that this is a big tree, not a little ornamental tree, as one might have thought from the location of this one, at all. See reference 2, which, as it happens, includes more pictures of the seed cones of present interest.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/plant-life_59.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liriodendron_tulipifera.