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catalpa seeds, and among the plants grown from these seeds were a few (perhaps th& 

 product of a single pod) quite unlike any catalpa I knew, and showing so many points 

 of interest that I watched them with especial care — believing they must be from my 

 Japan tree, because so different from any of the others. Being unable to identify it 

 with descriptions within my reach, X sent samples of the flowers, leaves, seeds, etc., to 

 eminent botanists, and others skilled in trees, in different parts of the country, and also 

 tried to trace up the source from which the original tree had come. But nobody knew 

 it. The botanists were unable to give me any assistance, and the efforts to trace the 

 origin of my Japan tree only showed that it was grown from seed imported from Japan, 

 without name, other than catalpa. 



I have since visited my old place, and a careful examination of the original tree 

 there, its leaves, bloom, seeds, etc., proved, to my surprise, that it is nothing more nor 

 less than the species common in Japan, called by botanists Catalpa Kmmpferi, and quite 

 unlike the seedlings I had grown from it. There could be but one solution of the difii- 

 culty, and that is, that the flowers of this tree had been fertilized by those of the 

 sjjeciosa, which grew not far from it, and thus produced, by natural hybridization, this 

 new variety. This idea of hybridization had before been suggested to me by Robert 

 Douglas and others, but I felt reluctant to accept the theory until after I had examined 

 the parent tree. 



The characteristics of the new variety are very marked, and partake largely of those 

 of both its parents. In its vigorous, upright growth, it even surpasses them both. Its 

 foliage is large and luxuriant, sometimes regularly heart-shaped, but often having sharp 

 pointed lobes on one side or both, showing great diversity of form on the same tree. 

 The lobed leaves — velvety purple or brown when they first appear — the yellow marking 

 about the throat of the flower, and the early age at which the young trees bloom, all 

 clearly point to the Japan influence in its parentage, while the American is unmistakably 

 shown in the profusion of its large and handsome white flowers, and the very thin sap- 

 wood. The seed-pods and seeds are very distinct, and are intermediate between those of 

 speciosa, which are the largest of all, and those of the yellow flowering Kosmpferi, which 

 are the smallest. It is the most profuse bloomer of all the catalpas, being literally 

 loaded with flowers, and remaining in bloom for several weeks — a much longer period 

 than the others. The individual flowers are the size of those of the common catalpa, 

 not so large as speciosa, but this is more than made up by their greater abundance. 

 They are whit?, with many very small purple dots and a touch of yellow, and are borne 

 in clusters of extraordinary size, sometimes numbering as high as three and even four 

 hundred buds and blooms in one great panicle. They do not all open at once, but keep 

 up a succession of bloom for a long time. The flowers have a very pleasant and delicate 

 fragrance, and a tree in bloom not only presents a magnificent spectacle to the eye, but 

 also fills the air for quite a distance with its agreeable odour. 



The leaves frequently attain immense proportions — occasionally measuring eighteen 

 or twenty inches across, and even larger, and one monstrous leaf, carefully measured by 

 Prof. G. C. Swallow, of our State Agricultural College, and myself, was twenty-five inches 

 broad, and eight feet ten inches around the margin, not measuring the stem. 



In the spring of 1880 I sent Prof. Geo. Husmann, at the State University, Colum- 

 bia, Missouri, one thousand very small trees, culls out of the one-year-olds — many of 

 them no larger than small straws. They were set in nursery rows late in May, and 

 though it was a dry and unfavourable season, they made a surprising growth — many of 

 them reaching a heighth of six feet or more, and from one to one and a-half inches in 

 diameter, and straight as young Lombardy poplars. I also sent a dozen larger trees of 

 the same, which were delayed on the way, and he wrote me were as dry as sticks when 

 received, and he thought ruined. However, he planted them, and every one not only 

 lived, but made a good growth. 



Small trees planted in village lots, grew without cultivation, in five years, to be 

 twenty-five feet high, and twenty-four inches in circumference at one foot from the 

 ground ; and I measured one shoot in the top of one of these trees, which had grown 

 eight feet in a single season. They have made double the growth of other catalpas 

 alongside, under exactly the same conditions, though the last have made a fair growth. 



