Plant · P-159

Princess Tree

Paulownia tomentosa

Princess Tree grows fast enough to reach roughly 50 feet by 30 feet on its own, but cut back to a stump every winter it does something different entirely - the regrowth carries metre-wide leaves rich enough in protein to feed cattle and rabbits, plus the single largest mass of mulch material in this collection. Left uncut instead, the same species grows into a prized lightweight timber tree, but reaching flowering age also means one mature tree can disperse an estimated twenty million wind- and water-borne seeds. Coppice and timber are two different uses of the same tree, not two things you get from one individual - the annual cut is what keeps it from ever flowering or seeding at all. It fixes no nitrogen and readily colonizes disturbed or burned ground.