128 PRACTICAL FOKESTKT. 



Ohio, collected many interesting facts in relation to the value 

 of the Western Catalpa, -which were given to the public in a 

 pamphlet pubhshed in 1879. The question as to whether the 

 Catalpa as found growing in the Western States is a distinct 

 species from the one found in our Eastern and Southern, is one 

 that can well be left to scientists to decide. My first acquain- 

 tance with the Catalpa was in Illinois, some thirty odd years 

 ago", and I have since seen it in all its perfection in Kentucky 

 and Missouri, and in those States it is certainly a grand forest 

 tree, and is no doubt well worthy of extended cultivation 

 where it will thrive as well as in its native forests. The prin- 

 cipal points of difference claimed for their so-called Western 

 Catalpa, is a more erect habit of growth, larger flowers, which 

 appear from one to three weeks earlier in the spring. Seeds 

 also larger and with broader wings, and lastly the trees are 

 more hardy than the species, or the older and better known 

 Eastern Catalpa. 



C. EeempferL — Japan Catalpa. — ^A small tree resembling our 

 native Catalpa, with ovate, heart-shaped leaves, abruptly 

 pointed, sometimes three-lobed. Flowers smaller than the 

 American, spotted with purple. Pods and seeds smaller than 

 our Catalpa, and fully as hardy. 



C. Bnngei. — ^A species from Northern China, growing four or 

 five feet high, with handsome, dark-greeh leaves. Cluster of 

 flowers are said to be a foot long. I have had this species 

 growing in my grounds for many years, but it has never 

 bloomed, although it is apparently quite hardy. 



C. bignonioides, (var. aurea). — ^This is a handsome, golden-leaved 

 variety of our native Catalpa, and a handsome ornamental 

 tree, which with me has never been injured by the frosts of 

 winter. 



CEANOTHTJS, Linn. 



A genus of some twenty-five indigenous species, aU except 

 two are low shrubs of no special value except for ornamental 

 purposes, although one of the species (O. Americanus), indige- 

 nous to the Atlantic States has figured somewhat conspicuously 

 in our domestic history under the name of New Jersey Tea, as 

 the leaves were in early times used as a substitute for genuine 

 tea. All handsome little shrubs or trees with small, white or 

 blue flowers, in long, branching clusters. Foijr species are 

 found in the Eastern States, the others belong to the Rocky 



