N. ORD.—BIGNONIACE/. 409 
GENUS.—CATALPA,* SCOP. WALT. 
SEX. SYST.—_DIANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
CA TAL Pa 
INDIAN BEAN. 
SYN.—CATALPA BIGNONIOIDES, WALT.; BIGNONIA CATALPA, LINN.; 
CATALPA SYRING4FOLIA, SIMS.; CATALPA CORDIFOLIA, DUHAM. 
COM. NAMES.—CATALPA, INDIAN BEAN, BEANTREE. 
A TINCTURE OF EQUAL PARTS OF THE FRESH INNER BARK AND LEAVES OF 
CATALPA BIGNONIOIDES, WALT. 
Description.—This magnificent umbrageous tree, beautiful in blossom, pictur- 
esque in fruit, attains a height of from 20 to 40 feet, its short trunk and spreading 
branches making it one of our finest shade trees, noted for the persistence of its 
fruit, the pods often hanging until new ones are formed. The séem is deliquescent, 
and has a fine gray corrugated bark, more or less glossy and warty; the wood 
commercially has but little value, though it is light, fine-textured, and capable of 
taking a fine polish. The dranches are large and very irregular in their mode of 
growth. Leaves large, opposite or in whorls of three, long-petioled, simple, entire, 
heart-shaped and pointed; they are smooth above and downy beneath, especially 
upon the midrib. Zxflorescence open, compound, showy panicles, of large, striking 
flowers, upon the ends of the branches. Calyx deeply 2-lipped or 2-parted, the 
segments being ovate, scaphoid, and blunt-pointed. Coro//a monopetalous, cam- 
panulate, inflated, deciduous; the repand five-lobed, divergent border, irregu- 
lar and 2-lipped. Stamens sometimes didynamous with a rudimentary fifth, but 
more frequently with only one fertile pair; //aments incurved, as long as the tube 
of the corolla and inserted upon it; az¢hers with two diverging cells ; pel/en-grains 
compounded of many globular bodies all united in the form of a globe. esti 
compound ; ovary 2-celled, free, upon a fleshy discoid base; séy/e single; sigma 
capitate, or consisting of two lips or plates. Fruct a woody, subcylindrical, 
slender pod, from 4 to 12 inches long, pendulous and persistent, 2-celled, the 
septum contrary to the valves ; seeds numerous, densely packed and superimposed, 
flattened by compression, membraneous, with fringe-tipped ale ; emdryo flat, al- 
bumen none. ) 
History and Habitat.—Catalpa, like all the other genera of this order of 
plants, is tropical; its most northern range is Kentucky, where it grows in many 
places spontaneously, flowering in July, and fruiting in October. It is cultivated 
in many places in the Middle and Eastern States, attaining a full growth and ap- 
_ * The Indian name. 
