Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. IX 
NO. 12 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN. MASS. JUNE 29. 1923 
Catalpas are trees of the Bignonia Family and grow naturally only 
in eastern North America, the West Indies and northern and central 
China. They all have large simple leaves, and large terminal clusters 
of two-lipped flowers followed by long slender pods containing many 
thin seeds furnished at the ends with long tufts of pale hairs. All the 
Catalpas and one or two of their hybrids are growing in the Arbore¬ 
tum with the exception of the species from the West Indies. The first 
Catalpa, C. hignonioides, which attracted the attention of botanists and 
gardeners was sent from South Carolina to England early in the eight¬ 
eenth century. This for a long time was the only American species 
cultivated in Europe or the United States, but forty or fifty years ago 
it became known that another species grew in the valley of the Ohio 
River and along the Mississippi River as far south as western Tenn¬ 
essee and northeastern Arkansas. To this Catalpa the name speciosa 
has been well given as it is now known to be the largest, the fastest 
growing, the hardiest and the handsomest of all Catalpa-trees. It is 
the earliest of all the species, too, to bloom, and it is now covered 
with flowers which are larger than those of the other species. On the 
rich alluvial bottom lands of the Mississippi River this tree has often 
grown to the height of one hundred and twenty feet and formed a 
trunk four and a half feet in diameter. In New England it will never 
grow to that size, but although it was introduced into the eastern 
states less than fifty years ago trees in eastern Massachusetts are 
already fully forty feet high and have been flowering and ripening 
their seeds for many years. Catalpas produce soft wood which is re¬ 
markably durable when placed in contact with the soil, and in some of 
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