428 TREES IN WINTER. 



HARDY CATALPA 

 Cigar Tree, Indian Bean, Western Catalpa. 



Catalpa speciosa Warder. 



HABIT — A tall tree reaching 100 ft. in height and 4 ft. in trunk 



diameter in the Ohio basin, of smaller dimensions in New England, 



with slender branches, forming a comparatively narrow round-topped 

 head. 



BARK — Reddish to grayish brown, with longitudinal scaly ridges. 



TWIGS — Stout, smooth or slightly short-downy, reddish to yellowish- 

 brown, the tips of twigs generally winter-killed. LENTICELS — con- 

 spicuous, rather large and numerous. PITH — white, wide, occasionally 

 chambered at the nodes. 



L.EAF-SCARS — Opposite or more frequently 3 at a node, large and 

 conspicuous, round to elliptical, with depressed center. STIPULE-SCARS 

 — absent. BUNDLE-SCARS — conspicuous, often raised, forming a closed 

 ring. 



BUDS — Terminal bud absent, lateral buds small, semi-spherical, gener- 

 ally under 2 mm. high. BUD-SCALES — brown, loosely overlapping, 

 about 5 or 6 visible. 



FRUIT — A long cylindrical capsule, 8-20 inches in length, with nu- 

 merous flattened, winged, white-hairy, fringed seeds, persistent on 

 the tree through winter. The photograph of the capsule is reduced to 

 about % natural size. 



COMPARISONS — The 3 large circular leaf-scars at a node with com- 

 plete ring of bundle-scars render the Catalpa twig easily recognizable. 

 The long cigar-like fruits that hang on the tree supply a distinctive 

 habit character. A very closely related southern and less hardy species, 

 the Common Catalpa iCatalpa hignonioides Walt], was formerly more 

 planted than the Hardy Catalpa. It is a smaller tree with a rather 

 more spreading habit but is most readily distinguished from the western 

 species at the time of flowering. 



DISTRIBUTION — Not native in New England but planted as an orna- 

 mental shade tree and for timber. It grows native along borders of 

 streams and ponds and rich often inundated bottom-land; southern 

 Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri south into Kentucky, Tennessee and 

 Arkansas. 



WOOD — Light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, very durable in contact 

 with the soil, light brown with thin nearly white sapwood of 1 or 2 

 layers of annual growth; largely used for railroad ties, fence posts 

 and rails and occasionally for furniture and the interior finish of 

 houses. 



