[Illustration: Chilopsis linearis]
Common names: DESERTWILLOW, DESERT-CATALPA
Arizona, California, and Texas deserts: (_Chilopsis linearis_).
Pink-lavender. April-August.
Bignonia family. Size: Shrubby tree, 6 to 15 feet high.
Although a close relative of the Catalpa, the willow-like foliage of
this small tree has given it the name Desertwillow. A small and
inconspicuous part of the desert vegetation when not in flower,
unnoticed among the heavier growth of trees and shrubs that crowd the
banks of desert washes, the tree’s beautiful orchid-like flowers of
white to lavender mottled with dots and splotches of brown and purple
bring exclamations of delight from persons viewing them for the first
time. Because of the beauty of the tree when in bloom, it is sometimes
cultivated as an ornamental.
Leaves are rarely browsed by livestock, and the durable, black-barked
wood is used for fenceposts. In Mexico, a tea made by steeping the dried
flowers is considered to be of medicinal value. By early autumn, the
violet-scented flowers which appear after summer rains are replaced by
the long, slender seed pods which remain dangling from the branches and
serve to identify the tree long after the flowers are gone.
Although Desertwillows are never found in pure stands, growing singly
and rather infrequently among other trees and shrubs lining desert
washes, the species is quite common below 4,000 feet across the entire
desert from western Texas to southern Nevada, southern California and
southward into Mexico.