Description

Cladrastis kentukea is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree typically growing 10–15 metres tall, exceptionally to 27 metres tall, with a broad, rounded crown and smooth gray bark. Bark: Smooth gray, or light brown. Branchlets at first downy, but soon become smooth, light yellowish green; later red brown, finally dark brown. Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound, eight to twelve inches long. Leaflets seven to eleven, broadly oval. They come out the bud pale green, downy. In autumn they turn a bright clear yellow. Flowers: June. Perfect, papilionaceous, white, borne in drooping terminal panicles twelve to fourteen inches long, five to six inches broad, slightly fragrant. Fruit: Legume, smooth, linear-compressed, tipped with the remnants of the styles. Seeds four to six, dark brown.

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Origin

Cladrastis kentukea, the Kentucky yellowwood or American yellowwood is a species of Cladrastis native to the Southeastern United States, with a restricted range from western North Carolina west to eastern Oklahoma, and from southern Missouri and Indiana south to central Alabama. The tree is sometimes also called Virgilia.