The Catalpa of Burgerhoutsestraat

This catalpa stands southwest of a building on Burgerhoutsestraat, banded by the national register to a planting around 1900, roughly 130 years old. A London plane the register also lists grows at the front of the same building, so the property carries two registered trees framing it from different sides, one native to the eastern United States and one a hybrid bred in seventeenth century Europe. Southern catalpa is grown for its broad, heart-shaped leaves and, through midsummer, loose clusters of white flowers marked with purple and yellow spots inside each throat, followed by long, bean-like seed pods that can hang on the bare branches well into winter, giving the species its other common name, Indian bean tree, despite having no connection to India. A catalpa at 130 years is well into a mature specimen's proportions, wide-crowned and often leaning or multi-stemmed if it was ever cut back hard when young. The register records nothing of who planted it or why, only the species and the decade. If you know more about this tree or the building it stands beside, tell us.