NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1535262
34 Nebraskaland • June 2025 he northern catalpa is a tree you likely recognize but may not know by name. Perhaps you've seen it adorned with striking clusters of large, white fl owers, standing out like a snow cone amid otherwise green woodlands. Or maybe, as a child, you were grudgingly sent outside to rake up its huge fallen leaves cluttering the yard. Most memorably, you and your friends may have ventured into the woods, plucked a few of the catalpa's cigar-shaped seed pods and pretended to smoke them. The tree is native to the central Mississippi River valley where it is called the Catawba tree (cuh-tah-buh). For reasons unknown, early settlers or botanists in this region named the tree after the Catawba people, a local Native American tribe. The northern catalpa has been widely planted in the eastern half of Nebraska, mainly as an ornamental and as a source of fence posts, where it has escaped cultivation and now grows in the wild in moist bottomlands with well-drained soils. Several years ago, I gathered seed pods from a catalpa tree growing near an abandoned house up the road from our farm. I planted seeds in pots and transplanted several seedlings into our yard. I've been impressed by the trees' rapid growth, shapely form and diversity of pollinators attracted to the fl owers. Recently, I read that catalpa worms, a prized catfi sh bait, live on the trees. This summer I plan to pay even closer attention to this interesting tree … as I love to catfi sh. Natural History The northern catalpa is a stout- trunked tree that, in Nebraska's drier climate, can reach about 40 feet in height and live up to 150 years in age. Its pale-colored wood is weak yet durable when in contact with the soil, making it historically popular for fence posts. To form the best post, saplings were cut back to the ground after the fi rst or second year of growth and then only one or two of the best sprouts were left un-thinned to grow to post-size. The tree's telltale heart-shaped leaves can reach an impressive 4 to 10 inches long and 3 to 8 inches wide. The bell-shaped, 2-inch-long fl owers bloom from late May to mid-June. The seed pods, which can reach an amazing 20 inches in length, ripen from green to purplish-brown in late summer and hang from the tree through winter. These distinctive pods give the tree two of its other common names: the Indian bean tree and cigar tree. The nectar-rich fl owers attract a variety of pollinators including hummingbirds, native bees and bumble bees, and night-fl ying moths. The lower fl ower petal has purple lines and yellow blotches that act as guides The Natural History of the Northern Catalpa Tree By Gerry Steinauer, Botanist T Northern catalpa seed pods release their many fl at, winged seeds, which the wind spreads in late winter or early spring. GERRY STEINAUER