To investigate the reasons for terminal bud death, the relationship between terminal bud death and programmed cell death in Paulownia was studied using morphocytology and DNA ladder techniques with one-year-old seedlings of Paulownia spp. The results showed that there were no characteristic morphological changes of the chromatin/chromosomes or nucleus, such as chromatin condensation, nuclear shrinkage, distortion, or degradation after DAPI (4’,6-diamidino-2-phenylindo-le) staining, and DNA laddering was not found in cells after agarose gel electrophoresis. Preliminarily results suggest that the terminal bud death of Paulownia spp. is not clearly related to programmed cell death.