Catalpa

With their big, broad, rubbery leaves and their seed pods that hang down all ragged and stringy, catalpa trees seem to me as though they belong in a swamp, in the South, somewhere very humid. They seem to have been designed precisely to fit into a William Faulkner novel. The trunk of a well-grown catalpa is massy and round, but then the branches droop and tangle themselves all around, tending to dip back down toward the ground. What makes this tree my favorite, though, is the flower. I found this image on the Oklahoma University website:



You don't expect a catalpa to have such a pretty flower, and you can't quite believe it until you actually look at it up close. The catalpa flower has an orchid-like quality to it, a long tongue and a fine spray of purple coming out of the bell, the yellow splotches on either side, the ruffled white skirts. I don't know enough about botany to know what any of it is for except that it is all essential to the process of making more catalpa trees. The flower seems like it ought to be delicate, but there are thousands of these things all over a tree that seems otherwise to be quite sturdy. If I were a bee, I would spend time here. The fragrance of the flowers is sweet and drowsy, not as powerful as honeysuckle but still maintaining a definite presense when you are in proximity of the tree. The fact that these trees grow around here -- that they flourish, even -- never ceases to surprise me. I'm glad for that.