All our collections are of apparent escapes from cultivation to roadsides, railroads, fencerows, and thickets. Native mostly south of Michigan, except for a few apparently native occurrences in southwesternmost Ontario and the Erie Islands. First collected in 1893 in Jackson Co.

This shrubby vine produces aerial roots at the nodes on climbing shoots, but not tendrils. The bright corollas are (5.5–) 6–8 (–8.5) cm long with long orange tube and short red limb; the capsule is elongate, larger in diameter than in Catalpa but somewhat shorter.