BIGNONIACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 83 
CATALPA. 
FLoweErs perfect ; calyx gamosepalous, closed in the bud, bilabiately splitting in 
anthesis; corolla gamopetalous, 2-lipped, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; 
stamens usually 2; staminodia 3; disk hypogynous, nearly obsolete; ovary 2-celled ; 
ovules numerous. Fruit a linear woody capsule. Leaves simple, usually opposite, des- 
titute of stipules. 
Catalpa, Scopoli, Introduct. 170 (1777).—A. L. de Jus- 711. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. ii. 1041. — Baillon, 
sieu, Gen. 138. — Meisner, Gen. 301. — Endlicher, Gen. Mist. Pl. x. 45. 
Catalpium, Rafinesque, Jour. Phys. lxxxix. 259 (1819). 
Trees, with watery juices, terete branchlets with thick pith, thin scaly bark, scaly buds, soft light- 
colored wood, and fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, verticillate, or alternate, involute in vernation, simple, 
entire or lobed, oblong-ovate or cordate, long-petiolate, deciduous. Flowers vernal or estival in 
ample terminal compound trichotomously branched panicles or corymbs. Bracts and bractlets linear- 
lanceolate, deciduous. Calyx membranaceous, subglobose and apiculate in the bud, in anthesis splitting 
nearly to the base into two broadly ovate entire lobes. Corolla gamopetalous, thin and membra- 
naceous, white or yellow, variously marked and spotted on the inner surface, inserted on the nearly 
obsolete disk, the tube occasionally furnished on the upper side near the base with an external lobed 
appendage, oblique and enlarged above into a broad bilabiate limb, with spreading lips undulate 
on the margins, the posterior two-parted, the anterior deeply three-lobed. Stamens and staminodia 
inserted near the base of the corolla; stamens two, introrse, anterior, included or slightly exserted, or 
rarely four ; filaments flattened, arcuate; anthers attached on the back, oblong or linear, carried to the 
rear of the corolla and face to face on either side of the stigma by a half turn in the filaments near their 
base, two-celled, the cells divergent in anthesis, opening longitudinally ; staminodia filiform, minute or 
rudimentary. Ovary sessile, two-celled, abruptly contracted into an elongated filiform style divided at 
* ovules numerous, inserted in many 
the apex into two stigmatic lobes exserted above the anthers ; 
series on acentral placenta, horizontal, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit an 
elongated subterete capsule tapering from the middle to the two ends, persistent on the branches during 
winter and ultimately splitting loculicidally into two valves. Seeds numerous, compressed, oblong, 
exalbuminous, inserted in two to four ranks near the margin of the flat or more or less thickened, 
woody septum free from the walls of the capsule ; testa thin, light brown or silvery gray, longitudinally 
veined, produced into broad lateral wings notched at the base of the seed and divided at their narrowed 
or rounded ends into comas of long coarse white hairs. Embryo filling the cavity of the seed ; 
cotyledons plane, broader than long, slightly two-lobed, rounded laterally ; radicle short, erect, turned 
toward the oblong conspicuous basal hilum. 
Catalpa is now confined to the eastern United States, the West Indies, and China. During the 
1 In the North American species of Catalpa the flowers are pro- who enter the corolla in search of the nectar secreted by the small 
tandrous ; the anthers open in the morning and discharge their oblong glands on the margin of the disk, and probably insure their 
pollen, while the lobes of the stigma remain closed until the even- cross-fertilization. (See Antisdale, Bot. Gazette, viii. 171. — Del- 
ing of the same day, when the anthers have become effete (Engel- pino, Ulteriori Osservazioni, i. 149 ; ii. 172.) 
mann, Bot. Gazette, v. 3). The flowers are visited by humble-bees, 
