The Black Calabash Tree (Crescenlia cucurbilina, Linn.) is the only other native tree that belongs in the family with the catalpas. The shores of Bay Biscayne, in southeastern Florida, form the outpost of its extensive West Indian and Central Amer ican range. Its flower is a solitary, purplish-yellow tube with a flaring border. The leaf is obovate, leathery, dark green, with perfectly plain margin. The fruit is a berry, 3 or 4 inches long, and shaped like a peach or plum. Its hard, shiny shell encloses many flattish seeds.
The gourd-like fruit of the West Indian calabash tree (C. Cujete, Linn.) is made into drinking-cups and a great variety of culinary utensils. It is much larger than that of the preceding species.
The Paulownia (Paulownia Sieb. & Zucc.) is a member of the spurge family, not so far away from the catalpa, botanically speaking. Indeed, an untrained eye detects the similarity in foliage, flowers and general habit of the two trees. In lustiness of growth each excels in many regions where tropical profusion of leafage and bloom is exceptional.
The paulownia blossoms before the leaves; its clustered violet flowers hung out on the ends of twigs look like foxgloves. Showy as these are, they need the leaf background—the lack of it scores against them among critical admirers of ornamental trees. The clustered seed balls, too, are unsightly in winter, requiring to be cut off.
A very satisfying screen of verdure is renewed every season by cutting back to one or two stalks seedlings of paulownia. The heart-shaped leaves are often a foot across. The hardiness of the tree commends it. Even as far north as Montreal it comes up from roots every year, forming long shoots which bear leaves astonishingly large compared with trees indigenous to the region.
In spite of the drawbacks named, this tree enjoys a growing popularity in the eastern half of the country. Its flowers are deliciously fragrant, and no tree blossom has more delicate colour. Blue is unusual among tree blossoms, and these trees, like great blue-flowered catalpas, are striking objects in parks and along avenues. Native of Japan and China, the paulownia feels enough at home already in America to ruri wild in some places. A splendid evergreen species has been found in the Himalayas.
1. Genus VIBURNUM, A. L. de Juss.
Small trees with ill-smelling wood, and tough, slender branches. Leaves simple, opposite, ovate, 2 to 4 inches long,
with margined petioles. Flowers white, in broad terminal cymes. Fruit a blue, berry-like drupe with flat stone.
KeY TO SPECIES A. Branches slender; winter buds long pointed; petiole mar gins wavy, broad. (V. Lentago) SHEEPBERRY AA. Branches stout; winter buds stout; petiole margins narrow, not wavy.
B. Leaves and petioles rusty pubescent.
(V. rufidulum) RUSTY NaNNYBERRY BB. Leaves and petioles smooth.
(V. prunifoliunz) BLACK HAW Viburnums are related to the elders and belong in the honey suckle family. They include a multitude of ornamental shrubs, evergreen and deciduous, grown in gardens and shrubberies the world over for their showy flowers and decorative fruits as well as their handsome foliage which often colours brilliantly in the fall. Not all viburnums combine all these desirable horticultural qualities. There are about one hundred species known. They are distributed in the continents of the Northern Hemisphere and extend south to Central America, North Africa and Java. The old-fashioned snowball bush is perhaps the most familiar representative of the genus. The Japanese snowball, with much more handsome foliage and flowers, followed by red berries, is rapidly succeeding the other in popularity.
Sheepberry (Viburnum Lentago, Linn.)—A small. round headed tree, of many slender, pendulous branches. Twigs pubescent, becoming smooth. Bark brown, broken into thick, scaly plates. Wood heavy, hard, brownish yellow, close textured, bad smelling. Buds red; axillary long pointed, in two pubescent scales; terminal, button-like, with long, abruptly tapering scales. Leaves 2 to 3 inches long, ovate, with tapering apex and base, serrate, shining, leathery, opposite, pitted with black underneath; autumn colours orange and red; petioles stout, short, with wavy, winged margins. Flowers, April to June, in flat cymes, 3 to 5 inches across; white, perfect. Fruit, September, oval, dark blue drupes, sweetish, juicy, smooth, with pale bloom on red pedicels, few in a cluster. Preferred habitat, moist soil of rocky stream borders or edges of swamps. Distribution, Quebec to Saskatche wan; south to Alabama along Appalachian Mountains; west to Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming. Uses: Ornamental shrubs or trees in Eastern States.