872 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



large pale scattered lenticels, and by large oval elevated leaf-scars containing a circle of 

 conspicuous fibro-vascular bundle-scars, becoming in their third or fourth year, reddish 

 brown and marked by a network of thin flat brown ridges. Winter-buds covered by chest- 

 nut-brown broad-ovate rounded slightly puberulous loosely imbricated scales, those of the 

 inner ranks when fully grown bright green, pubescent, and sometimes 2' in length. Bark 

 of the trunk i' |' thick, light brown tinged with red, and separating on the surface into 

 large thin irregular scales. Wood not strong, coarse-grained, light brown, with lighter 

 colored often nearly white sap wood of 1 or 2 layers of annual growth; used and highly val- 

 ued for fence-posts and rails. 



Distribution. Usually supposed to be indigenous on the banks of the rivers of south- 

 western Georgia, western Florida, and central Alabama and Mississippi, and now widely 

 naturalized through the south Atlantic states and in Kentucky and Tennessee. 



Often planted for the decoration of parks and gardens in the eastern United States, and 

 hardy as far north as eastern New England, and in western, central, and southern Europe. 

 A dwarf round-headed form (var. nana Bur.) of unknown origin is often cultivated under 

 the erroneous name of C. Bungei Hort. not C. A. Meyer. 



X Catalpa hybrida Spaeth a hybrid of this species and the Chinese C. ovata G. Don is 

 occasionally cultivated. 



2. Catalpa speciosa Engelm. Western Catalpa. 



Leaves oval, long-pointed, cordate at base, and usually entire or furnished with 1 or 2 

 lateral teeth, pilose above when they unfold and covered below and on the petioles with 

 pale or rufous tomentum, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green on the upper surface 

 and covered with soft pubescence on the lower surface, especially on the stout midrib and 



Fig. 769 



the primary veins furnished in their axils w r ith large clusters of dark glands, 10'-12' long 

 and 7 '-8' wide; turning black and falling after the first severe frost of the autumn; petioles 

 stout, terete, 4 '-6' in length. Flowers appearing late in May or early in June, on slender 

 purple glabrous pedicels furnished near the middle with 1-3 bractlets, in open few-flowered 

 panicles 5 '-6' long and broad, with green or purple branches marked by orange-colored 

 lenticels, the lowest branches often in the axils of small leaves; calyx purple, often spar- 

 ingly villose or pubescent on the outer surface; corolla white, often spotted externally with 

 purple near the base, about 2' long and 2|' wide, and marked internally on the lower side by 

 2 bands of yellow blotches following 2 lateral ridges and by occasional purple spots 

 spreading over the lobes of the lower lip of the limb; filaments marked near the base by 

 oblong purple spots. Fruit 8'-20' long, |'-f in diameter near the middle, with a thick 

 wall splitting toward spring into 2 concave valves; seeds 1' long and \' wide, with a light 

 brown coat, and wings rounded at the ends and terminating in a fringe of short hairs. 



