Paulownia


PAULOWNIA IMPERIALIS.--Japan, 1840. This is a handsome, fast-growing

tree, and one that is particularly valuable for its ample foliage, and

distinct and showy flowers. Though perfectly hardy, in other respects it

is unfortunate that the season at which the Paulownia flowers is so

early that, unless the conditions are unusually favourable, the flower

buds get destroyed by the frost. The tree grows to fully 40 feet high in

> this country, and is a grandly decorative object in its foliage alone,

and for which, should the flowers never be produced, it is well worthy

of cultivation. They are ovate-cordate, thickly covered with a grayish

woolly tomentum, and often measure, but particularly in young and

healthy trees, as much as 10 inches in length. The Foxglove-like flowers

are purplish-violet and spotted, and borne in terminal panicles. They

are sweetly-scented. When favourably situated, and in cool, sandy loam

or peaty earth, the growth of the tree is very rapid, and when a tree

has been cut over, the shoots sent out often exceed 6 feet in length in

one season, and nearly 2 inches in diameter. There are many fine old

trees throughout the country, and which testify to the general hardihood

of the Paulownia.



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