Catalpa

Did you know

• Catalpa flowers look like white orchids growing on a tree—each frilly bell has frilled lips and a yellow-and-purple striped throat as a runway for pollinating bees.
• The huge heart-shaped leaves can grow over a foot wide—old folk names include 'cigar tree' and 'Indian bean tree' for the foot-long bean-like seed pods that follow the flowers.
• When catalpa blooms in June, the entire tree looks like it's been decorated for a wedding—a giant white-frilled crown that drops petals into a pearly carpet underneath.
• Catalpa wood is so rot-resistant that it was the favored material for fencepostsin Midwestern American farms—a single post could last 60 years in damp soil.
• The tree is famously the only food source for the catalpa sphinx moth caterpillar, which Southern fishermen prize as the world's best catfish bait—'catalpa worms' are legendary in Mississippi River lore.

Color meanings

Uses

• Shade tree
• Specimen tree
• Wildlife habitat
• Lumber