Is chitalpa native to Texas?

No. Chitalpa is a hybrid of garden origin. It was first bred in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in the 1960s and brought to the United States in 1977. There is no wild population of it anywhere. One of its two parents, desert willow (Chilopsis linearis), is a Texas native; the other, southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides), is a southeastern US tree. Half-native parentage does not make the hybrid native.

How big does a chitalpa get?

It gets up in the twenty to twenty-five foot range, which puts it at the taller end of the flowering ornamentals. Treat that as a starting point rather than a specification: height and spread are very variable based on environment. The same tree in a river bottom grows remarkably taller than one on a hillside or a rocky slope, and width is dictated by competition. Crowded in among other plants, canopies do not get that wide; out in the open with nothing next to them, they develop much wider.

Is a chitalpa the same thing as a desert willow?

No. Desert willow is one of chitalpa's two parents, not another name for it. The two get conflated in conversation because the flowers look alike, and the difference is worth keeping straight for one practical reason: desert willow is native to Texas and chitalpa is not.

Are chitalpas hard to find?

I can tell you they are not really available around here and that just being able to find one is a question mark. That is what I run into, not a claim about the whole market. What is known about the plant itself is that it is sterile: it does not come true from seed, so every chitalpa in the trade is a cutting taken off another chitalpa, and somebody has to decide to grow it.

Is chitalpa a good tree for Austin?

It is a personal favorite of mine and it is very hardy. Mexican plum and chitalpa both get up in the twenty to twenty-five foot range, depending on what is competing with them and what the site gives them, and are wonderful trees for our area. Like any ornamental, it is not a three-hundred-year live oak. It is going to look great for a while, and one day you are going to cut it down and put in another one.

Chitalpa: A Personal Favorite, If You Can Find One

Chitalpa is a flowering ornamental that gets up in the twenty to twenty-five foot range, depending on what’s competing with it and what the site gives it, and it’s one of my personal favorites: very hardy, and a wonderful tree for our area. The catch comes before planting rather than after it. Around Central Texas it isn’t really available, and it’s also kind of expensive. Just being able to find one is a question mark.

The second thing worth knowing is that it isn’t native, and it isn’t native in an unusually literal way. A chitalpa is a hybrid that came out of a botanical garden in Uzbekistan in the 1960s. There is no wild population of them anywhere.

At a Glance


What it’s for	A flowering ornamental. The taller end of that group
Botanical name	×Chitalpa tashkentensis
Height	20–25 ft*
Native?	No. Garden origin. First bred in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in the 1960s, in the US since 1977
Parentage	Desert willow (Chilopsis linearis, a Texas native) crossed with southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides, a southeastern US tree)
Leaves	Deciduous
Propagation	Sterile. Every plant in the trade is a cutting taken off another one
Availability	The real constraint on this tree. Not reliably available here, and kind of expensive
Lifespan here	35 years (longer than a redbud, shorter than an althea)

* Height and spread are very variable based on environment, and that caveat belongs on any size figure we publish. The same tree down in a river bottom will grow remarkably taller than one on a hillside or a rocky slope. Width is dictated by competition: crowded in among other trees or shade structures, canopies won’t get that wide; out in an open field with nothing next to them, they develop much wider. Nearby competition and growing conditions will move a figure like twenty to twenty-five feet considerably.

A Garden Hybrid from Tashkent

Chitalpa is an intergeneric hybrid, which means somebody crossed two different genera and got something that works. The parents are desert willow, Chilopsis linearis, and southern catalpa, Catalpa bignonioides, and the name is just the two of them run together. It was first hybridized in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in the 1960s, and it reached the United States in 1977. The Missouri Botanical Garden’s native-range field for this plant reads, in full, “Garden origin.”

Write it ×Chitalpa tashkentensis, with the × in front of the genus. It marks a hybrid genus, a nothogenus, rather than a cross between two species inside one genus, which is what Chitalpa × tashkentensis would mean. Several nurseries print the second version. It’s a small thing, and it’s also the difference between a name that says what the plant is and one that doesn’t.

Here’s where it gets interesting for anyone shopping in Austin. Desert willow, half the parentage, is genuinely a Texas native. Southern catalpa is a southeastern US tree, not a Texas one. And the hybrid of the two is not native, full stop: half-native parentage confers exactly nothing. Asked straight out whether I’d call this one native, the answer is no.

That matters more than a taxonomy footnote usually does, because chitalpa and desert willow get mixed up in conversation. The flowers look alike, so people run the two names together, and somebody who has been told correctly that desert willow is native can walk away believing it about the wrong plant.

None of which is a strike against the tree. Native is a fact about where a species came from, not a promise about how it’ll do in your yard, and the reason I like this one is the way it holds up here, which is a completely different kind of evidence.

Finding One Is the Hard Part

This is the part no reference site will tell you, because a reference site isn’t out buying trees.

Chitalpas aren’t really available around here, and they’re also kind of expensive. Just being able to find one is a question mark. That’s what I run into; I’m not making a claim about every nursery in the state.

What’s known about the plant itself is that it’s sterile. It doesn’t come true from seed, so every chitalpa in the trade is a cutting taken off another chitalpa. Somebody had to decide to propagate it. I’ll stop there rather than tell you that’s the reason they’re scarce, because I don’t actually know that it is.

With bigtooth maple I can tell you why it costs what it costs: it’s really hard to get hold of, and that’s why it’s on the expensive list. It isn’t a premium tree with a premium price on it, it’s a scarce one. With chitalpa I’d only be guessing at the same link, so I’ll leave the two facts sitting next to each other.

The practical version of all this: availability is a selection constraint on this tree in the same way sun is on an althea or creek water is on a Mexican plum. If your heart is set on a chitalpa, that’s worth saying at the start of the conversation rather than the end of it, because it’s one of the things that gets settled when we plan a tree planting, before anything is ordered.

Where It Fits Among Austin’s Other Ornamentals

I sort ornamentals by mature height rather than by flower.

The short group runs twelve to twenty feet: redbuds, and Texas mountain laurel. The taller group runs twenty to twenty-five, and that’s Mexican plum and chitalpa. Both are wonderful trees for our area. If you want a flowering tree that reads as a tree rather than a large shrub, that second group is where you’re shopping, and this is one of the two.

The other one comes with a condition. Mexican plum is really a riparian tree. It wants to be next to a creek, though an irrigation system overcomes that. Chitalpa is the one I’d describe simply as very hardy.

Asked to rank the three for a customer, I won’t: I appreciate them all for their unique appeal to certain customers or landscape looks, and which one belongs in your yard is a question about your yard. Asked which one I like, chitalpa is one of them.

What an Ornamental Is For

Whatever you plant out of that group, plant it knowing what it is. Smaller ornamentals don’t live as long. Take a redbud: it’s not a three-hundred-year-lifespan live oak, it’s a twenty-year redbud. It’s going to look great for a while, and then you’re going to cut it down. It isn’t going to be dangerous or hazardous when that day comes, and you can regrow a new one quickly.

All three of those conditions are doing work, not just the first. Short life on its own would be bad news. Short life plus a failure that hurts nobody plus a replacement you can regrow quickly is a different proposition entirely. It’s a tree you’re supposed to be willing to lose. Its purpose isn’t to be gigantic in the landscape. It’s to give some scale. You lose a little bit, and that is disappointing, but it also comes back quick.

Our Take

Plant it if you can get it. It’s a personal favorite, it’s very hardy, and it sits in the taller of the two ornamental bands.

Then plan for not getting it. The one thing about this tree most likely to change your afternoon is the thing a reference page has no reason to mention: there may simply not be one for sale. So don’t design the whole bed around a chitalpa. Know what you’d put there instead. Mexican plum is the same height and the same answer to the same question, and there’s more on working that decision through in how to pick a tree for a spot.

If you’re trying to settle what goes in a front-yard spot and you’d rather somebody looked at the actual site first, that’s a short conversation and we’re glad to have it. Call (512) 996-9100 or use the contact page.

More Trees for Central Texas

Texas mountain laurel: the durable, much slower-growing option in the shorter band
Anacacho orchid tree: another small flowering tree, with its own buying quirk
The Central Texas Field Guide: every species we’ve written up, grouped by what you want the tree to do