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Catalpa country

2007 June 14

By Ken Moore
Flora Columnist

“The other day I saw an ad in the local paper – ‘Catalpa worms for sale, twenty-five cents a dozen.’”
No, that’s not from last week’s Citizen. It’s from Paul Green’s Plant Book. I’m wondering if he was referring to a long-ago issue of the paper from our neighboring town. The reference to Catalpa worms (the larva of the Catalpa Sphinx Moth) makes me remember my childhood summers spent on my aunt’s small tobacco farm just south of Macon, NC. I was fascinated how her front-yard Catalpa tree leafed out again after total defoliation by Catalpa worms. Some of the local men frequently gathered cans of those worms for fish bait. I remember also how “grossed-out” I was whenever I stepped on one with my bare foot and green ooze covered one or more toes. Apparently that green ooze is considered mighty tasty to catfish. Experienced fishermen can make that worm really tasty by turning it inside out before threading it on the hook. And to have a year-round supply, there’s a description on the Big Fish website (www.bigfishtackle.com) that says Catalpa worms can be packed in a glass jar of cornmeal or sawdust, frozen and later thawed to their original wiggling vigor. Now there’s a little summertime experiment for the curious among you.
Since the early 1700s, we have been cultivating both the Southern Catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides) and Northern Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa), which are very similar in appearance. An impressive, widely spreading specimen is showing off right now in the front yard of an old home on Martin Luther King Boulevard, near Timberlyne. A few weeks earlier, you may have noticed the tall slender specimens in full flower in the Coker Arboretum and at the base of the Kenan Chemistry tower on South Road. That stately Catalpa, reaching almost to the top of the chemistry tower, is well worth a visit. We are indebted to local poet and botany librarian Jeffrey Beam and university forester Tom Bythell for looking out for that tree during the recent years of construction.
For the beautiful flowering Catalpa, with it’s curious long, thin bean-pod-like fruits, we have a rich assortment of common names: Fish Bait Tree, Cigar Tree, Indian Cigar, Indian Bean Tree, and I used to call my aunt’s tree a Monkey Cigar Tree, a name I can’t find referenced anywhere. There are accounts that native Americans did smoke those bean pods. Paul Green recorded, from his chats with old timers of the Cape Fear River valley, that, “Smoke inhaled from the parched and powdered Catalpa leaves, like Jimson leaves, was a good asthma treatment.” Please note: Don’t try these remedies without direct supervision of your physician! But do plant a Catalpa tree of your own, for fishing, for shade and for the beauty of it!

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com.

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