My favorite blooms in early July decorate an unusual tree, once commonly found throughout Illinois and other nearby states. It’s a catalpa tree that was growing in the backyard when I moved in, and ...

Have you ever heard of a “fence-post tree"? Also known as Indian bean tree, cigar tree, catawba, or caterpillar tree, Catalpa is a large tree with showy white, fragrant flowers, massive heart-shaped ...

There was one northern catalpa tree in my neighborhood when I was a child. I didn’t know what it was, but I loved that tree. In June, it had clusters of large bell-shaped, ruffled white flowers with ...

Catalpas are irregularly shaped trees shrouded in deeply ridged, coarse gray bark. These quirky trees grow quickly and can easily reach heights of 40-70 feet tall. Their rapid growth rate and ...

As I write this, the many catalpa trees surrounding our farmyard are raining leaves. Last night we had our first frost, an occasion that causes all the catalpas to simultaneously shed all their leaves ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...