102 Botanical Department. [Bulletin 108 



was also active and prominent in calling attention to the economic 

 value of the Western catalpa in the states bordering on the plains, 



We therefore find, in the early '70's, a generally well-diffused knowl- 

 edge among Western tree-planters of the distinction between the two 

 catalpas, and of the very important fact that C. speciosa, the Western 

 form, was hardy about as far north as 44 and from the Missouri river 

 to New England, and that its wood, like that of the Eastern species, 

 possessed the very desirable quality of resisting the agencies of decay 

 to a remarkable degree, and beyond that shown by any other native 

 species of timber. 



SYSTEMATIC. 



The genus Catalpa belongs to the family of the Bignoniacece. Of 

 the six species, two, 0. catalpa Karst. and C. speciosa Ward., are 

 native to North America. Following are the botanical descriptions 

 of the American species : 



Catalpa catalpa (Linn.) Karsten. 



Bignonia catalpa Linnaeus, Spec. PI., ed. 1, II, 622 1753). 



Catalpa bignonioides Walter, Flora Caroliniana, 64 (1788). 



Catalpa cordifolia Moench, Meth. 464 (1794). 



Catalpa ternifolia Cavanilles, Desc. PI. 26 (1802). 



Catalpa syringsefolia Sims, in Bot. Mag. XXVII, t. 1094 (1808). 



Catalpa communis Du Mont de Courset, Bot. Cult., ed. 2, III, 242 (1811;. 



Catalpa catalpa Karsten, Deutsch Fl. 927 (1882). 



"Flowers in many-flowered, crowded panicles; corolla thickly spotted on the 

 inner surface. Fruit slender. Leaves slightly acuminate. 



"A tree, rarely sixty feet in height, with a short trunk, sometimes three or 

 four feet in diameter, and stout, elongated brittle branches, which form a broad 

 head and dichotomous branchlets. The bark of the trunk varies from a quarter 

 to a third of an inch in thickness, and is light brown tinged with red on the sur- 

 face, which separates in large, thin, irregular scales. The branchlets, when 

 they first appear, are green shaded with purple, and slightly puberulous. During 

 their first winter they are thickened at the nodes, lustrous light orange color or 

 gray-brown, covered with a slight glaucous bloom, and marked with large, pale, 

 scattered lenticels, the outer layer of the thin bark separating easily from the 

 bright green inner layer. The leaf-scars, in which appear a circle of conspicuous 

 fibro-vascular bundle scars, are large, oval, and elevated, and do not entirely 

 disappear until the third or fourth year, when the branches are reddish brown, 

 and marked with a network of thin, flat, brown ridges. The branch continues 

 to grow throughout the summer, the end dying in the autumn, without forming 

 a terminal bud, and appearing during the winter as a black scar by the side of 

 the upper axillary bud. The axillary buds are minute, globose, and deeply 

 immersed in the bark, with several pairs of chestnut-brown, broadly ovate, 

 rounded, slightly puberulous and loosely imbricated scales; those of the inner 

 ranks are accrescent, and when fully grown are bright green, pubescent, and 

 sometimes two inches in length. The leaves are opposite and in threes, broadly 

 ovate, rather abruptly contracted into slender points, or sometimes rounded at 

 the apex, cordate at the base, and entire or often laterally lobed. When they 



