BIGNONIACEZ. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 87 
four or five inches broad, with stout terete petioles five or six inches in length, prominent midribs and 
primary veins arcuate near the margins, connected by reticulate veinlets, and furnished in their axils 
with clusters of dark glands.'| They smell disagreeable when bruised, and turn black and fall after the 
first severe frost in the autumn. The flowers, which appear from May in the south to the middle of 
July in New England, are produced in compact many-flowered panicles eight or ten inches long and 
broad, with light green branches tinged with purple, and are borne on slender pubescent pedicels half 
an inch in length. The calyx is half an inch long, and green or light purple. The corolla is white, 
with a broad campanulate flat tube, and a spreading limb which, when it is expanded, is an inch and a 
half wide and nearly two inches long; it is marked on the inner surface on the lower side with two 
rows of yellow blotches following two parallel lateral ridges or folds, and in the throat and on the lower 
lobes of the limb with crowded conspicuous purple spots. The stamens and style are slightly exserted. 
The fruit, which ripens in the autumn, hangs in thick-branched orange-colored panicles, and remains on 
the trees without opening during the winter ; it is six to twenty inches long, a quarter to a third of an 
inch thick in the middle, with a thin wall which is bright chestnut-brown on the outside and light olive- 
brown and lustrous on the inside, and in the spring splits into two flat valves before finally falling ; the 
partition is thin and light brown. The seed is about an inch long, a quarter of an inch wide, silvery 
gray, with pointed wings terminating in long pencil-shaped tufts of white hairs. 
Catalpa Catalpa is usually supposed to be indigenous on the banks of the rivers of southwestern 
Georgia, western Florida, and central Alabama and Mississippi. The hardiness of this tree, however, 
in severe climates like that of New England, would indicate an origin in some colder and more elevated 
region, and it is possible that the Catalpa-trees which now appear to be growing naturally in the south- 
ern states are the offspring of trees carried there by man.’ 
The wood of Catalpa Catalpa is soft, not strong, coarse-grained, and very durable in contact with 
the soil, with numerous obscure medullary rays and rows of large open ducts clearly marking the layers 
of annual growth; it is light brown, with lighter colored often nearly white sapwood composed of one 
or two layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4474, a cubic foot 
weighing 27.88 pounds. It is used and highly valued for fence-posts, rails, and other purposes where 
durable wood is needed. 
The bark, which contains tannin and an amorphous bitter principle, has been occasionally used, 
as well as the seeds, in decoction for the treatment of asthma and bronchitis,’ and in homeeopathic 
practice.* 
The first account of Catalpa Catalpa was published in the Natural History of Carolina’ by 
Mark Catesby, by whom it was introduced into English gardens about 1726.° Its value as an orna- 
1 In the North American and Chinese species of Catalpa the 
leaves are furnished with these glands, which, on the American 
species, at least, secrete nectar, and are visited by numerous insects 
who feed upon it (Kerner, Flowers and their Unbidden Guests, 136. — 
Ryder, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1879, 161 ; Am. Nat. xiii. 648). 
2 The light large-winged seeds of Catalpa, which are carried far 
and wide by the wind, and are able to float for a long time on the 
surface of the water, are perfectly adapted to insure its wide dis- 
semination, especially in a region abounding in swift-flowing 
streams like that which surrounds the southern extremity of the 
Appalachian mountain system. Catesby, who is the first botanist 
who speaks of this Catalpa, found it in the uninhabited part of 
Carolina, which in his time was all the middle and western part of 
the state, and carried it to the coast. 
the forests which cover the foothills of the southern Alleghany 
Although not now known in 
Mountains except in the neighborhood of human habitations and on 
the banks of streams, it is not improbable that they contain the 
home of this tree, which, during the last hundred years, has become 
completely naturalized in populous regions in the middle and 
southern states. 
8 Nat. Dispens. ed. 2, 367. — Johnson, Man. Med. Bot. N. Am. 
201 ; U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1747. 
4 Millspaugh, Am. Med. Pl. in Homeopathic Remedies, i. 109, t. 
109. 
5 Bignonia Urucu foliis flore sordide albo, intus maculis purpureis 
& luteis asperso, siliqua longissima & angustissima, i. 49, t. 49. 
Bignonia ; Americana ; Arbor ; Syringe Cerulee foliis flore pur- 
pureo, Miller, Dict. No. 4. 
Bignonia foliis simplicibus cordatis, Linnzus, Hort. Cliff. 317.— 
Royen, Fl. Leyd. Prodr. 289. 
Bignonia foliis simplicibus cordatis, flore sordide albo, intus maculis 
ceruleis purpureis irregulariter adspersis ; silique longissima et angus- 
tissima, Romans, Nat. Hist. Florida, 27. 
6 Aiton, Hort. Kew. ii. 346 (Bignonia). — Loudon, Arb. Brit. 
1261, t. (Catalpa syringifolia). 
