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United States / Grow / southern catalpa

southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides)
Photo: (c) Melissa McMasters, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

southern catalpa

Catalpa bignonioides · Bignoniaceae · all Catalpa records · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Southern catalpa is generally treated as fire resistant by U.S.

guidance, but a Catalan wildfire-landscaping guide advises against it. Four U.S. sources recommend the tree, while the 2020 Spanish edition from Catalonia discourages it.

The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs give southern catalpa a Firewise rating of 1, the best band on their four-point scale. Ohio State University Extension rates its flammability low on a five-band scale, and Virginia Cooperative Extension also calls it low on its three-band scale. The University of Tennessee Extension includes it in a binary list of Firewise plants.

Catalonia’s provincial government and fire service reach the opposite verdict because their garden-suitability method asks a broader question. It combines fire-resistance research and fire-service experience with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, and invasiveness, while assuming species-specific care. Its “desaconsejada” rating therefore does not directly contradict every low-flammability judgment; it says the tree is unsuitable after several concerns are weighed together.

Southern catalpa is a roughly 50-foot tree native to the southeastern and south-central United States. For an American homeowner, the regional U.S. guidance offers substantial support for treating it as a Firewise choice. In a landscape governed by Catalan guidance, however, its broader suitability verdict points the other way.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Form
tree
Mature height
~50 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
low
Rated in
Catalonia, Spain; Ohio / Midwest; Tennessee; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic +1
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Catalonia, Spain; Ohio / Midwest; Tennessee; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources
  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.

  • Landscaping Guidelines to Protect Your Home from Wildfire (SP685) · Official scoped edition
    • TN; partial normalized coverage · 2006-10-24

      University of Tennessee Extension SP685 is Tennessee landscape guidance and publishes 78 represented plant owners. Most table rows are a carrier of Virginia Firescapes rather than an independent rating; Tennessee source scope does not change that lineage or establish site suitability.

  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, NC, ND, NJ, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, FL, GA, LA, MS, TX.
Introduced / established
8 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

6

exact source areas

Current introduced

8

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

6 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Mississippi (MS)
  • Texas (TX)
8 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • New York (NY)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Vermont (VT)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (4)

Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)

Avoids (1)

Fire-resistant trees instead

Lombardy poplar
Populus nigra 'Italica' boxelder
Acer negundo honeylocust
Gleditsia triacanthos smooth sumac
Rhus glabra eastern cottonwood
Populus deltoides black cherry
Prunus serotina

Fire-resistant trees listed above

Same genus in the directory · the Catalpa group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Catalpa bignonioides (Southern catalpa). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/catalpa-bignonioides/. Last verified 2026-08-23.