Purple Princess

I was driving to see a member of our congregation last evening, and there it was hanging out over Old Battleground Road just north of Lake Brandt, that tree, that tree with the purple flowers I had seen last week along I-40 in Forsyth County and down near Chapel Hill. I had only been able to describe it in passing as I drove by on the interstate.

Anyway, this morning on the way to work I drove over to the corner of Lake Brandt and Old Battleground, parked my car in that gravel space by the Greenway, and walked down to check out the tree. The first thing I noticed was that I was wrong about the fruit. It was definitely NOT a legume. The hanging fruit clusters left from last season were nut-like shells, like partially opened pecans.

Secondly, on first glance, it really looked like a Catalpa. A week had gone by since I noticed the trees last time, and so the leaves were more developed, big heart shaped leaves. And the flower clusters seemed totally Catalpa-ish, except that they weren’t the right color exactly (though they did have a very Catalpa-ish yellow stripe inside the flower cup), and the petal cups weren’t exactly the right shape.

The bark on the tree that I looked at was grey and fairly smooth, and the tree was twenty five or so feet high, but was having to do some major leaning out over the road to compete for sun against all the other trees crowded against it.

I was stumped, so I grabbed a few fallen flowers and immature nuts off the ground and when I got to the office I got out my tree books.

I think our mystery tree is the “princess-tree,” Paulownia tomentosa, or some variety of it. Apparently it is an “invasive species.”

The National Park Service says of the tree on its web site, in its section on “alien plants,” the following:

"Princess tree was introduced into the U.S. as an ornamental and landscape tree around 1840. It was first imported to Europe in the 1830's by the Dutch East India Company and brought to North America a few years later. This tree has since become naturalized in the eastern U.S. and is also grown on the west coast. Princess tree is native to western and central China where historical records describe its medicinal, ornamental, and timber uses as early as the third century B.C. It was cultivated centuries ago in Japan where it is valued in many traditions. Recently it has also been grown in plantations and harvested for export to Japan where its wood is highly valued."

From answers.com I found out that the genus, Paulownia, "was named after Princess Anna Paulovna (1795–1865), Russian princess and queen of William II of the Netherlands. "

Well, about every body seems to think this oriental tree is an environmental pest, and I won’t argue with the experts. It still makes for a lovely site along a drab interstate on a mid Spring drive.