61. Fitzgerald Park Catalpa
An unusual hybrid catalpa steals the show in Cork’s finest park.
The most noteworthy tree in Fitzgerald Park is a wonderful leaning hybrid catalpa growing between the café and the river Lee. The park opened in 1906, having previously been the site of the 1902 Cork International Exhibition (the brainchild of Edward Fitgerald, Cork’s first Lord Mayor), and many of the mature trees almost certainly date to around this time, including the Fitzgerald Park Catalpa.
Species details
Hybrid catalpa
Catalpa x erubescens ‘JC Teas’
Where to find it
Fitzgerald Park, Mardyke Walk, Cork T12 AW6R
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Hybrid catalpa notes
Many will be familiar with the ‘Indian bean tree’, an outmoded name for the southern catalpa, but there are other catalpa species too. They tend to be less common and are rather difficult to tell apart, as leaves, flowers and fruits are all similar. One of the less frequently encountered trees is the hybrid catalpa, the result of interbreeding between two species from different continents, the North American southern and Chinese yellow catalpas (C. bignonioides, and C. ovata). The resulting plant has creamy flowers and tends to be a larger tree than either parent, a characteristic of heterosis or hybrid vigour. Like that other transcontinental hybrid, the London plane, the hybridisation has occurred on more than one occasion, however, many of the plants now seen are clones of a single cultivar ‘JC Teas’ named after John C Teas who raised the original at his Raysville, Indiana nursery during the 1860s or 70s.
