290 The Catalpas. 



SOUTHERN CATALPA (Catafya bignonoides). 1 



1179. This tree is found native in Georgia and other Southern 

 States, but has been widely cultivated for ornament in the Middle 

 States and in Europe, where the climate is not too cold. It is 

 found susceptible to frost, and sometimes, after several years of 

 apparent success, it will sufier great injury, or be wholly killed by 

 a hard Avinter following a season that favored a late growth. 



1180. Under favorable conditions, it grows with great rapidity, 

 and to a large size, being fifty feet or more in height, and from 

 eighteen to twenty inches in diameter. It has large showy blos- 

 soms, broad leaves, a silver-gray bark, which is but slightly fur- 

 rowed, and a wide spreading top. The branches are relatively 

 few in number, and the capsules long, cylindrical, and pendant. 

 The wood is grayish- white, of fine texture, and brilliant when pol- 

 ished, much resembling that of the butternut, but of less reddish 

 hue and of greater durability. 



1181. HARDY CATALPA (Gatalpa speciosa). For many years 

 there has been cultivated in Ohio, Indiana, and other Northern and 

 Western States a form of catalpa that was long considered a hardy 

 variety of the C. lignonoides. It Avas found to be not only hardy, 

 but very durable. Its habit Avas more erect, groAving in dense 

 groves, Avith stems 50 feet in height; the bark Avas more closely ad- 

 herent and furroAved vertically, much like that of the Avhite ash. 

 The flowers are larger, nearly pure Avhite, and about three Aveeks 

 earlier than the other species. 



1182. It is described by Dr. Engelmann (omitting the technical 

 description of the flowers) as follows: 2 "A middle-sized tree, Avith 

 grayish-brown, much cracked or furroAved, at last slightly flaky 

 bark, and light-yelloAvish gray Avood ; leaves large, truncated, or 

 more or less cordate at base, slender, acuminate, soft, downy on the 

 under side, inodorous. . . . Common in the low, rich, some- 

 times overfloAved woodlands near the mouth of the Ohio, along the 

 lower course of that m r er and its confluence, and in the adjoining 

 lowlands of the Mississippi, in the States of Illinois, Indiana, Ken- 



1 Thus named by Waltber. It is named C. cordifolia by Elliott; C. syr- 

 ingacfolia by Sims, and Bignonia catalpa by Michaux. 

 ^Botanical Gazette, V. No. 1, January, 1880. 



