The Indian bean tree in New Earswick Photo: Photo: Elisabeth Alley
The Indian bean tree
Elisabeth Alley tells the story of a very special tree
The list of trees to be planted in the Olympic Park (17 August) included an Indian bean. This tree is of particular interest to New Earswick Friends and is featured in the book Discovering New Earswick under the heading ‘Summer spectacular’. It is part of a fascinating chapter in Quaker history.
In 1902, Joseph Rowntree’s conviction that it must be possible to provide better housing for people on low incomes led him to acquire 150 acres of land near the village of Earswick, two-and-a-half miles from the centre of York. It was planned as a ‘garden village’, and was an attempt to create a balanced village community where, although rents were kept low, they should still represent a modest commercial return on the capital invested. Houses there were to be open to any working people, not just Rowntree employees. The village was to be a demonstration of good practice: if New Earswick was successful, Joseph hoped that similar communities would be built elsewhere in the country.
At his insistence, the houses had gardens with fruit trees and enough ground to grow vegetables. All the grass verges were planted with trees and almost all the roads were named after trees. He also specified that ten per cent of the land, apart from roads and gardens, should be open space. It is in one of these open spaces that our Indian bean tree was planted fifty years later, in 1954. Months after the spring blossoms of other flowering trees have faded away, the Indian bean tree produces a wonderful floral display. The showy flowers then give way to bunches of long black seed pods, hence the ‘bean’ part of its name.
But why ‘Indian’ when, in fact, it was imported from central USA? The answer lies in its Latin name, Catalpa, thought to be a mispronunciation of the tribal name Catawba. It was in the lands of these people that the tree was first recorded by British botanists early in the eighteenth century.
The second part of its botanical name is bignonioides, taken from the trumpet vine Bignonia, because of the similarity of their heart-shaped leaves. Those of the Indian bean tree are huge, measuring about 25cm by 15cm, and they soon become tattered if the tree is sited in a windy spot. A further disadvantage is that the weight of foliage on the spreading lateral branches can pull them down and cause splitting. So, our New Earswick specimen has been fitted with adjustable supports.
Two other Indian bean trees are famous, more for their location than their condition: just outside the House of Commons in New Palace Yard. When I enquired about them (back in 2006), the sergeant-at-arms informed me that these particular trees were becoming very brittle and he had already had to replace two others elsewhere. I then sent him two photographs of our tree in full blossom, and he responded, ‘It looks as if your tree is doing very much better than those in New Palace Yard.’ The comparison is hardly fair; their trees were planted on top of an underground car park!
