The young leaves of catalpa are edible, and the skin is a kind of traditional Chinese medicine (called white skin of catalpa). The wood is light, soft and antiseptic, and it is an exquisite material for making furniture, musical instruments and coffins. In addition, Catalpa bungeana is a fast-growing tree species, which was often used as firewood in ancient times. It is precisely because mulberry and catalpa are closely related to people's food, clothing, housing, transportation and injections that ancient people often plant mulberry and catalpa in front of and behind their houses, and people often pay tribute to mulberry and catalpa planted by their parents and ancestors.
For example, there is a cloud in "Poetry Xiaoya Xiaoyan": "Weisang and catalpa must respect each other; I am afraid of my father, but I am afraid of my mother. " Zhu Chuan: "Mulberry, catalpa and Ershu. The five-acre house of the ancients, under the tree wall, was left to future generations and was also used for eating ... Mulberry parents planted it. " In addition, in ancient China, family cemeteries were built near mulberry trees, and catalpa trees were often planted in front of the graves of the deceased (as recorded in Biography of Historical Records and Wu Zixu, before Wu Zixu was given a sword by Fu Cha, the king of Wu, he said to the messenger, "I must plant catalpa trees on my grave, so that it can be used as a weapon"). This is an article from Chen Lin at the end of Han Dynasty, Yu Zhou for Yuan Shao, Liang Xiaowang, the first emperor, the mother, and the tomb; It can be proved by the sentence "pine, cypress and mulberry are still respectful". "
This is because in the eyes of the ancients, mulberry trees with strong branching and regeneration ability and catalpa bungeana trees with fast growth and excellent materials are both trees of life, and people regard them as trees of spirit.