Southern Catalapa – Catalpa speciosa

Catalpa flower

The green catalpa tree has turned

All white; the cherry blooms once more.

In one whole year I haven’t learned

A blessed thing they pay you for.

The blossoms snow down in my hair;

The trees and I will soon be bare…

By W.D. Snodgrass

My earliest memory of this tree is a hot summer day in late August or early September when I was maybe 12 years old. Until then it had just been a fixture in the back yard, just another tree. But that day my brother and his best friend and I sat in its shade talking. The boys thought the seedpods looked just like cigars. Being boys they were eager to try smoking one. Me being a girl and older smirked and got the matches. The boys lit up and puffed hard, my brother started to cough and choke, but his friend just proceeded to try anyhow. Before long both boys were losing their lunch and I was in trouble! I had let them do something stupid….since then I have harbored a grudge against the Cigar tree, and a great memory!

These perennial trees of the southeastern North America were once native to a small area of the central Mississippi Valley basin, western Tennessee, northeast Arkansas, and the lowlands of southeast Mississippi, and eastward to Louisiana. After the arrival of the European the spread of the tree was rapid, it is now found from Kansas south to Texas and eastward!

In the past the bark was used to treat snake bites, and malaria, acting as a quinine substitute. In Flower Essences the Catalpa Tree Essence is used with all matters of the heart. It is a potent, yet gentle healer. It has been utilized in situations of abandonment, separation and betrayal. It is safe enough to use with children who are grieving the loss of a parent through death, divorce, or separation (such as a parent in the military).

The beautiful flowers are visited by hummingbirds. The leaves are the larval food of the Sphinx moth. These caterpillars can be gathered and used as bait for fishing. In the South some people actually plant small orchards just to grow the ‘catawba worm’ for this purpose!

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Empress Tree – Paulownia tomentosa

Empress Tree Flowers

The Princess tree was introduced into the U.S. as an ornamental and landscape tree around 1840. It was first imported to Europe in the 1830′s by the Dutch East India Company and brought to North America a few years later. This tree has since become naturalized in the eastern U.S. and is also grown on the west coast

Princess tree is native to western and central China where historical records describe its medicinal, ornamental, and timber uses as early as the third century B.C. It was cultivated centuries ago in Japan where it is valued in many traditions.

The flowers have a delicate sweet fragrance. Flower aroma is reminiscent of vanilla

In China, an old custom is to plant an Empress Tree when a baby girl is born. The fast-growing tree matures when she does. When she is eligible for marriage the tree is cut down and carved into wooden articles for her dowry. Carving the wood of Paulownia is an art form in Japan and China.

Trumpet Creeper – Campsis radicans

Lipstick Vine

This easily grown vine has been cultivated in North America since Colonial times. The root is diaphoretic and vulnerary

The tubular flowers and large quantities of nectar produced by the trumpet creeper are attractants for hummingbirds and butterflies. The vines also provide habitat to ants, and birds like to nest in the vines

The showy flowers of trumpet creeper make this plant appropriate for some gardening and landscaping needs. It is often used as a cover for fences, arbors, walls, pillars or large trellises and as a groundcover. The cigar-like fruit may be considered decorative during winter

Ants inhabit the blossoms – or perhaps they’re shopping for nectar. At any rate if you cut trumpet vines for indoor arrangements go over them carefully to flush out any creature that may be lurking within the trumpet’s depths.

Catalpa tree – Catalpa speciosa

Catalpa seedpods

catalpa flower showing the calyx

The name derives from the Catawba Native American name catawba for these trees (the tribal totem), with the spelling Catalpa being due to a transcription error on the part of the describing botanist (Scopoli) making the first formal scientific description of the genus.

Historically catalpa wood has been valued for manufacturing fence posts. Pioneer doctors used the seedpods and seed to make a decoction for chronic bronchial infections, spasmodic asthma, labored breathing, and heart conditions

In Japan — the magical bow Azusa-Yumi is called the “bow made from the catalpa tree”.

A silly note: as children my brother, his friends, and I would take the seedpods, and pretend they were cigars. We would puff happily all day on a single seedpod! Until one day when someone got really smart and brought along a lighter. We lite one up and passed it around. Dizziness and nausea hit immediately, and put an end to such silly play!