StreetScape: Name this Tree
Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille
The trees lining Capitol Street are ringed with seed pods at the moment, around their base and way up in their branches (click small photo at right up large). 
There used to be a Latino percussionist in Charleston (was his name Nery Arevalo?) who would collect a half-dozen of these pods, tie them together into a unit and use them as a shaker as part of his percussion kit. I know I could probably Google for the tree’s name, but I have not yet had my second cup of coffee for the day and it is oh-so-nice to hear from the collective Google-mind of “DowntownWV” readers (see commentator Vic’s learned, helping hand on the FountainScape post below).
September 4th, 2007 at 9:42 am
I think they’re carob trees, or something very similar.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Can I grind up the pods and put them on my Breyer’s vanilla bean chip ice cream? Then again, Dr. Saville’s dog (see a couple posts below) may have left some presents among the carob pods | WD
September 5th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
catalpa.
an old lady in my childhood neighborhood had one, and that’s what she called it.
September 17th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I always thought that catalpa/catawba were the trees with the long slender seed pods and broad heart-shaped leaves that some people call ‘bean trees’ or ‘cigar trees’