Alternate name: Cigar Tree

Family: Bignoniaceae, Trumpet Creeper view all from this family

Description Tree with rounded crown of spreading branches; large, heart-shaped leaves; large, showy flowers; and long, beanlike fruit.
Height: 50-80' (15-24 m).
Diameter: 2 1/2' (0.8 m).
Leaves: 3 at a node (whorled) and opposite; 6-12" (15-30 cm) long, 4-8" (10-20 cm) wide. Ovate, long-pointed, straight to notched at base; without teeth. Dull green above, paler and covered with soft hairs beneath; turning blackish in autumn. Slender leafstalk 4-6" (10-15 cm) long.
Bark: brownish-gray; smooth, becoming furrowed into scaly plates or ridges.
Twigs: green, turning brown; stout; becoming hairless.
Flowers: 2-2 1/4" (5-6 cm) long and wide; with bell-shaped corolla of 5 unequal rounded fringed lobes, white with 2 orange stripes and purple spots and lines inside; in branched upright clusters, 5-8" (13-20 cm) long and wide; in late spring.
Fruit: 8-18" (20-46 cm) long, 1/2-5/8" (12-15 mm) in diameter; narrow, cylindrical, dark brown capsule; cigarlike, thick-walled, splitting into 2 parts; many flat light brown seeds with 2 papery wings; maturing in autumn, remaining attached in winter.

Habitat Moist valley soils by streams; naturalized in open areas such as roadsides and clearings.

Range Original range uncertain; native apparently from sw. Indiana to ne. Arkansas; widely naturalized in se. United States; at 200-500' (61-152 m).

Discussion Northern Catalpa is the northernmost New World example of its tropical family and is hardier than Southern Catalpa, which blooms later and has slightly smaller flowers and narrower, thinner-walled capsules. Both are called "Cigartree" and "Indian-bean" because of the distinctive fruit.