Chitalpas

Chitalpa tashkentensis ‘Pink Dawn’. Author’s photographs
The desert willow (Chilopsis linearis) from the desert washes of the American Southwest, and the southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides), from the southeastern United States, were brought together in the central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. From this unlikely event came one of the most exciting drought-tolerant woody plants for arid and semi-arid regions of the world.
Chitalpas are strikingly attractive small to medium-sized ornamental trees that have inherited the best features of both parents — the desert willow (Chilopsis linearis) and the catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides) — and are ideally suited for most of the soils and climates of the American Southwest. Among the better fea­tures of these plants are abundant trusses of fifteen to forty large flowers ranging from white to pink. Each flower is about an inch long, with a descending funnel-shaped throat, spreading petal lobes, and conspicuous purplish nectar guides on the inside of the flower. In southern California they begin to flower in mid to late May, after ...