PAULOWNIA IMPERIALIS. 
(Imperial Paulownia ) 
Class. Order. 
DID YN A MIA. ANGIOSPERMIA. 
Natural Order. 
SCROPHULARIACE/E. 
Generic Character — Calyx campanulate, five-cleft. 
Corolla tubularly campanulate, with a five- cleft, 
sub-bilabiate limb. Stamens four, didynamous. Stigma 
truncate. Capsule woody, two-celled, two-valved. 
Valves septicidal. Seeds numerous, each surrounded 
by a wing, attached to a fixed placenta on the back of 
the dissepiment. Albumen fleshy. 
Specific Character. — Plant a deciduous tree. Leaves 
ovate, cordate at the base, acute, undivided or three- 
lobed, densely clothed with soft hairs beneath. Flowers 
panicled. Calyx covered with rusty tomentum. Co- 
rolla having different shades of purplish lilac. 
A considerable quantity of this noble tree has lately been introduced to 
Britain from France and elsewhere ; and the circulated accounts, with the likelihood 
of its proving hardy, have excited so much attention, that we are induced to 
publish a drawing of it, which was made for us last year in the Garden of Plants 
at Paris, even though the species has not yet flowered in our own country. In 
deviating thus from our usual practice, we think we shall have more thoroughly 
carried out the wishes of our subscribers than by adhering steadfastly to the rule of 
figuring only what has bloomed in England ; because, the notoriety of our present 
subject is such, and there are so many living plants of it in our nurseries and 
gardens, that an opportunity of judging of its blossoms cannot be otherwise than 
acceptable. 
It is one of the finest of Dr. Siebold's many introductions from Japan, where 
it grows to the height of thirty or forty feet, with a trunk from two to three feet 
in diameter. The habit of the tree is shown in the woodcut on the following page. 
Its leaves are excessively large and handsome, and the flowers are very like those 
of Catalpa syringcefolia in shape, besides being borne in similar panicles from the 
extremities of the branches. 
When first received at Paris, it was nurtured with great tenderness, and even 
placed in a greenhouse ; but after being put in the open ground, it grew much 
more vigorously, and, though protected for a year or two, was ultimately found 
to need no artificial shelter. Whether it will succeed as well in England, without 
covering, is yet rather doubtful. Still, as it will most likely do so in the warmer 
districts, and as it will certainly get hardier after it has been exposed and inured 
