BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



bilobed, inside of corolla slightly marked at the throat with red brown 

 lines, and with two yellow bands at the commisures <tt" the lowest wiih 

 the lateral lobes; stamens and style as long as the tube ; pod terete, 

 strongly furrowed ; wings of seed about as long as the seed itself, 

 and rounded at the ends and split into a broad coma. 



Common in the low, rich, sometimes overflown woodlands near the 

 mouth of the Ohio, along the lower course of the river and its con- 

 fluents, and in the adjoining lowlands of the Mississippi; in the Stater, 

 of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas ; 

 according to Michaux abounding near the borders of all the rivers 

 which empty into the Mississippi further south ; whether the localities, 

 cited by him, of West Florida produce this or the Eastern species, is 

 at present unknown. — Flowers in May. — This tree has quite an inter- 

 esting and instructive history. It was already known to Michaux and 

 to many botanists and settlers in those regions ; even the aboriginal 

 Shawnees appreciated it and the French settlers along the Wabash 

 named it for them the Shawnee wood (Bois Chavanon) and prized the 

 indestructable quality of the timber, but the botanists, even the subtle 

 Rafinesque, who roamed over those very regions, seem to have taken 

 it for granted thai it was not distinct from the Southeastern Catalpa 

 bignonioides. To me the fact that these trees, then not rarely cultivated 

 in St. Louis,* produced their larger and more showy flowers some lo 

 or 15 days earlier than the Eastern or common kind, was well known 

 as early as 1842 and their blossoming has since l)een annually record- 

 ed in my notes on the advance of vegetation, but 1 had not the sagac 

 ity or curiosity to further investigate the tree. U was reserved to Dr. 

 J. A. Warder, of Cincinnati, to draw public attention to it. He was 

 struck with its beauty in the streets of Dayton, Ohio, vvhere a few 

 stragglers were cultivated, and described it cursorily in his Journal, 

 the Western Horticultural Review, Vol. Ill, page 533, without decid- 

 ing whether a distinct species -r a variety, and without assigning a 

 name to it. It was soon named, however, privately as it seems, by 

 hnn and his friends Catalpa spcciosa and was propogated as a more or 

 namental form. Thirteen years later I find in the catalogue of J. C. 

 Teas' nursery, BaysviUe, Indiana, for 1866, Catalpa speciosa offered, 

 the 100 one year old seedlings for $1.50. But only within the last few 

 years the beauty and im{)ortance of the tree has made a greater im 

 pression on the public mind, princi])ally through the exertions of Dr. 

 VV^arder himself. Mr. E:. E. Barney, of Davton, and Mr. R. Douglas, 

 of Waukegan, 111. The latter was s ■ much struck with the future 

 importance of this species that in the Autumn of 1878 he collected on 

 the lower Ohio 400 pounds of its seed for his own nursery and for 

 distribution to all parts of the world. 



Catalpa speciosa xt\\iCQ?, C. bignonioidcs Q\\i\x^\y in the Mississip])! 

 valley. It is readily distinguished from it hy its taller and straighter 

 growth, its darker, thicker (i^-i inch thick 1, rougher and scarcely 

 exfoliating bark (in the older species it is light gray, constantly peeling 

 off and therefore not more than 2 or 3 lines thick) ; its sofdy downy, 



*It seems singuhir, that the commnn Kastern spccifs has in our streetn almost coin- 

 pletcly s\iiii)lant('il the nuich lianilsoincr native. 



