Backyard and Beyond

Catalpa:The tree with the foot-long seed pods. Both the Northern Catalpa, C. speciosa, and the Southern Catalpa, C. bignonioides, grow in our region. The ones in Brooklyn Bridge Park may be some kind of cultivar or hybrid.
Eastern cottonwoods, Populus deltoides, growing wild in the as yet uncompleted part of the park.Note here the flat leafstalk and the warty glands at base of leaf.
Our old friend Paulownia, the tree that grows anywhere, and when it does, its early-growth leaves are enormous. My boot here is for scale, and not intended in any way to suggest trampled hearts on this day of all days, when, instead of buying some generic crap, or roses picked by brutalized workers on pesticide-pounded factory farms, you make something with your own two hands for your dearest leaf-person(s).