100 Botanical Department. [Bulletin 108 



Kentucky and Tennessee, to southeastern Missouri and northeastern 

 Arkansas. Nuttall, however, reported the tree only upon hearsay, and 

 not from observation. He was (loo. cit.) "informed by Governor 

 Harrison (of the Northwest territory) of its indubitable existence in 

 very considerable quantities on the banks of the Wabash, . . . 

 but extremely local." Further, he says: "I have never once met it 

 on either bank of the Ohio, Mississippi or Missouri rivers, which I 

 have ascended and descended thousands of miles." Later ("Travels 

 in Arkansas," 1819), he writes: "At Point Pleasant, six miles below 

 New Madrid (Mo.), I saw the catalpa in the forests, apparently indige- 

 nous, . . . though still contiguous to habitations." 



From a statement of Nuttall's, that "in the Southern states it does 

 not appear to grow with any degree of vigor," it would plainly appear 

 that he supposed the differences in habit and stature between the 

 trees described to him by General Harrison, and which he saw for 

 himself in Missouri, in 1819, and those growing in the Southeastern 

 states, to be due solely to the effects of climate and soil, and not to he- 

 reditary differences of specific value. Nuttall did not seem to suspect 

 that the tree seen by him in the West was other than the Catalpa 

 lignonioides of Walter, described in his "Flora Caroliniana," page 

 64 (1788). An interesting note is given by him as to the origin of 

 the name, from "Catawba," "derived from a tribe of Indians residing 

 on the Cat'awba river." The tree that Nuttall had in his mind was 

 the species now known as Catalpa catalpa (L.) Karsten (C. bignoni- 

 oides Walter), found apparently native along rivers in southeastern 

 Georgia, western Florida, and central Alabama and Mississippi, and of 

 which he relates as follows ("Sylva Americana," Michaux and Nuttall, 

 vol. 3, p. 77): "In a journey made into Georgia, Alabama and west- 

 ern Florida in 1830, at Columbus, Ga., on the banks of the Chatta- 

 hootshee, I, for the first time in my life, beheld this tree, decidedly 

 native, forming small haggard, crooked trees, leaning fantastically 

 over the rocky banks of the river." 



This species of catalpa had found its way up and down the Atlantic 

 coast, as an ornamental tree, early in the last century, and was known 

 from Massachusetts to Indiana. According to D. J. Browne, "Trees 

 of America," it was "introduced into Britain in 1726, . . . fre- 

 quently to be met with in gardens of collectors both in that country 

 and on the continent of Europe." 



Through the first half of the nineteenth century, concurrently with 

 the settlement of the middle West, this tree was introduced by seeds- 

 men and nurserymen through Ohio and Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, 

 and Iowa, where it was long confused with the native Catalpa spe- 

 ciosa, and generally supposed to be the same species ; although the 



