522 DESCRIPTIONS AND NOTES FROM THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 
IX. DESCRIPTIONS AND NOTES FROM THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 
IA SULPHUREA, 2. sp.— Simple, with spreading See glabrous ; leaves on very short petioles, [65] 
leaflets obovate, somewhat rhombic, obtuse or occasionally emarginate; stipules small, lanceolate, subpersistent; 
spikes rather short, with deciduous bracts, and sulphur-yellow spreading flowers; pedicels shorter than the broad cam- 
panulate calyx; broad ovate —— teeth, shorter than tube, woolly inside; style much longer than oval ovary (5 lines 
long); stipe of globose 
Prairies, Tabaksi County iadiio Terr. G. D, Butler], rare, flowers in May. B. leucantha differs by its larger — 
growth, deciduous stipules, longer spikes of white flowers which open much later, and longer pedicels, short style 
(3 lines long) about as long as the linear ovary. B. spherocarpa is well distinguished from our new species by its 
cespitose growth, more erect branches, strict spikes with erect deep yellow fogene, pedicels shorter than calyx, the 
lobes of which are triangular lanceolate, very acute, as long as the narrower tube, and sparingly woolly inside; style 
much longer than the oval ovary (6 lines long); stipe of pod scarcely longer than calyx. The new species is so muc 
intermediate between the two just mentioned that it suggests the idea of hybridity. — [1878, vol. iii.] 
CaTa.pa speciosa, Warder.* — A middle-sized tree, with grayish-brown, much cracked or furrowed, at last [1] 
slightly flaky bark, and light, yellowish-gray wood ; leaves large, truncated or more or less cordate at base, slen- 
derly acuminate, soft downy on the under side, inodorous; flowers in Jarge and loose panicles; tube of the corolla 
conical, longer than wide, its lower part scarcely protracted ; upper lip before its expansion longer than the other 
lobes and enveloping them, lower lobe bilobed, inside of corolla slightly marked at the throat with red-brown lines [2] 
and with two yellow bands at the commissures of the lowest with the lateral lobes; stamens and style as long as 
the tube; on oe strongly furrowed; wings of seed about as long as the seed itself, rounded at the ends and split 
into a broad 
ieetia in ri low, rick, sometimes overflowed woodlands near the mouth of the Ohio, along the lower course of 
that river and its confluents, and in the adjoining lowlands of the Mississippi; in the States of Illinois, Indiana, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas; according to Michaux abounding near the borders of all the rivers which 
empty into the Mississippi farther south; whether the localities, cited by him, of West Florida produce this or the East- 
ern species, is at present unknown. — Flowers in May. — This tree has quite an interesting and instructive history. It 
was already known to Michaux and to many botanists and settlers of those regions; even the aboriginal Shawnees 
_ appreciated it, and the French settlers along the Wabash named it for them the Shawnee wood (Bois Chavanon), and 
prized the indestructible quality of its timber ; but the botanists, even the subtle Rafinesque, who roamed over those 
very regions, seem to have taken it for granted that it was not distinct from the Southeastern Catalpa bignonioides. To 
me the fact that these trees, then not rarely cultivated in St. Louis,! produced their larger and more showy flowers 
some 10 or 15 days earlier than the Eastern or common kind, was well known as early as 1842, and their blossoming 
has since been annually recorded in my notes on the advance of vegetation, but I had not the sagacity or curiosity to 
further investigate the tree. It was reserved to Dr. J. A. Warder, of Cincinnati, to draw public attention to it. He 
was struck with its beauty in the streets of Dayton, Ohio, where a few stragglers were cultivated, and described it 
eursorily in his journal, the Western Horticultural Review, vol. iii. p. 533, without deciding whether a distinct spe- 
cies or a variety, and without assigning a name to it. It was soon named, however, privately as it seems, by him and 
his friends, Catalpa speciosa, and was propagated as a more ornamental form. Thirteen years later I find in the cata- 
logue of J. C. Teas’s nursery, Baysville, Indiana, for 1866, Catalpa speciosa offered, the 100 one-year old seedlings for 
$1.50. But only within the last few years the beauty and importance of the tree has made a greater impression on 
the public mind, principally through the exertions of Dr. Warder himself, Mr. E. E. Barney, of Dayton, and Mr. R. 
Douglas, of Waukegan, Ill. The latter was so much struck with the future importance of this species that in the 
autumn of 1878 he collected on the lower Ohio 400 pounds of its seed for his own nursery and for distribution to all 
parts of the world. 
Catalpa speciosa replaces C. bignonioides entirely in the Mississippi valley. It is readily distinguished from it by 
its taller and straighter growth, its darker, thicker ($-1 inch thick), rougher and scarcely exfoliating bark (in the older 
species it is light gray, constantly peeling off and therefore not more than 2 or 3 lines thick); its softly downy, 
slenderly acuminate and inodorous leaves (those of bignonioides have a disagreeable, almost fetid odor when [3] 
touched), marked with similar glands in the axils of the principal veins of the under side; by its much less 
crowded panicle and by its much larger flower, fruit, and seed. The flowers I found 2 inches in the vertical, and a little 
more in the transverse diameter; in the other they have 1% inches in each diameter; the lower lobe is oops sc notched 
* Reproduced in the Gardener’s Monthly, April, 1880, pp. 116-118. — Eps. 
1 It seems singular that the common Eastern species has in our streets almost completely supplanted the much hand- 
somer native. 
