314 CAT ALP A 



inflorescence, and its less markedly lobed leaves of a clearer, more glossy 

 green, and less downy. The flowers are fragrant, of a purer white than in 

 C. ovata, dotted inside with violet. This is a vigorous and quick-growing 

 tree. It may be a hybrid between ovata and bignonioides. 



C. SPECIOSA, Warder. WESTERN CATALPA. 



(C. cordifolia, Janine, in part.) 



A tree sometimes over TOO ft. high in a wild state, with a tall trunk 10 ft. 

 or more in circumference. Leaves inodorous, ovate, with a heart-shaped or 

 rounded base, and a long, tapering point ; 5 to 12 ins. long, 3 to 8 ins. wide ; 

 nearly or quite smooth above when mature, covered beneath with pale brown 

 down. Panicles about 6 ins. long, rather more wide, with comparatively few 

 flowers. Corolla white, 2 ins. long and wide, the tube bell-shaped, the lobes 

 spreading and frilled at the margin ; the lower one with yellow spots and 

 ridges as in C. bignonioides, but less freely spotted with purple. Seed-vessel 

 8 to 1 8 ins. long, | in. or little more wide. 



Native of the southern Central United States ; introduced in 1880. It 

 differs from C. bignonioides in its taller growth, its longer more tapering 

 leaves, and in its flowers being larger, fewer in the panicles, and less pro- 

 fusely purple-spotted. At Kew it flowers in July, two weeks in advance of 

 the other. I do not think it will prove so beautiful a tree in our climate as 

 C. bignonioides, for it does not appear to flower so freely. Its habitat is 

 considerably more western, and it replaces the other species entirely in the 

 Mississippi Valley. In the United States the timber of this tree is much 

 valued on account of its extraordinary durability, in contact with the ground 

 and with moisture. Sargent mentions in the Silva of North America^ vol. vi., 

 p. 90, a remarkable proof of this quality : 



The trunks of Catalpa trees killed by the sinking and subsequent submersion of a 

 large tract of land near New Madrid, Missouri, which followed the earthquake of 

 August 1811, were standing and perfectly sound sixty-seven years later, although all 

 their companions in the forest had disappeared long before. 



Gate posts, too, have been known to stand in perfect preservation fifty to 

 one hundred years. Railway companies in the United States are now planting 

 it largely, to provide a future supply of railway sleepers. 



C. TEASTANA, Dode. 



(C. hybrida, Hort^ 



A hybrid between C. ovata and C. speciosa, raised by Mr John C. Teas, 

 about 1874, in Indiana, U.S.A. It is, in most respects, intermediate between 

 the parents, but in {habit more nearly approaches the tall, erect C. speciosa. 

 Leaves of both the broadly ovate type of C. speciosa, as well as the prominently 

 angular-lobed ones of C. ovata are borne on the same branch, and even in adult 

 trees the latter are frequently 12 ins. across. Flowers white, stained with 

 yellow and spotted minutely with purple. In the Central United States it has 

 shown an extraordinary vigour ; leaves over 2 ft. wide, and panicles carrying 

 over 300 flowers, have been produced. I have seen it making a fine display in 

 the New York Botanic Garden in July, but in the British Isles it appears to 

 be about equal in value to C. speciosa, and decidedly inferior to C. bignonioides 

 as a flowering tree ; the leaves, however, even here, are the largest in the 

 genus. It flowers about the end of July, and was introduced in 1891. 



