Paulownia tomentosa

P. tomentosa is a large deciduous tree with an umbrella-shaped crown and grows to 10-18 m tall with a diameter at breast height of at least 1 m. Its bark is smooth and pale yellow to brown with numerous large lenticels when young, becoming rough and grey-brown with age, often with interlaced smooth areas that are often shiny. Olive brown to dark brown t wigs are stout and brittle, mostly glabrous except at the tip, around buds and along upper edges of leaf scars, lenticels pale, prominent, and elongated longitudinally. Deciduous l eaves are opposite, acuminate, cordate or broadly ovate, 20-30(-40) cm long, (10-)15-30 cm wide when mature, though leaves of stump sprouts may be twice as large, acute or obtuse, base cordate, margins entire or shallowly 3-5 lobed, sometimes toothed on small plants, pubescent and dull, light-green above, undersurfaces pale-green and tomentose. Terminal bud absent, axillary buds sunken in bark, winter buds with several outer scales, superposed. Cymes penduncled, the penduncles as long or longer than the pedicels, growing on the main axis and branches of paniculate inflorescences 40-60 cm long, though SE-EPPC (2003) observed the blossoms in much smaller upright clusters only 15-30 cm long and borne at the ends of stout, hairy twigs. Calyx deeply lobed, the lobes as long or longer than the tube. Flowers perfect, fragrant, showy, corolla 8-10 cm long, purple, tubular (or bell-shaped, SE-EPPC, 2003), pale violet with yellow stripes inside, with 5 shallow, rounded, unequal lobes. Brown fruit, ovoid, pointed, woody capsules 2.5-4 cm long borne in terminal clusters, with 2 carpels and numerous (up to 2000) tiny winged seeds attached to the 2 very large placentas. Seeds, tiny, winged, flat, 1.5 mm long.