A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Cassia corymbosa Lam.

Modern name

Senna corymbosa (Lam.) H.S.Irwin & Barneby

A shrub to 5 or 6 ft high, glabrous in all its parts. Leaves with two or three pairs of leaflets, which are lanceolate to oblong-ovate, bluntly pointed at the apex, 34 to 112 in. long; a characteristic gland is found on the main-stalk between the lowermost pair of leaflets. Flowers rich yellow, borne in late summer in clusters of three to eight at the ends of axillary shoots; corolla somewhat cup-shaped, about 1 in. wide.

A native of N. Argentina and neighbouring parts of S. America, introduced in 1796. It is best known as a shrub for the cool greenhouse but has been grown successfully outside in many mild gardens; even there it is best on a sunny wall, as it needs abundant sunshine if it is to flower well and ripen its wood. It should be spurred back in spring before growth commences and may be propagated by cuttings of half-ripened wood.



From the Supplement (Vol. V)

As pointed out briefly in the reprint, many plants grown as C. corymbosa belong to a different though related species, easily distinguished from that species by its leaflets being rounded at the apex. The correct name for this species would appear to be C. candolleana Vogel (syns C. obtusa Clos (1847), not (Roxb.) Wight (1844); C. closiana Phil.; C. bicapsularis var. chilensis Benth.). It is a native of central Chile, in cultivation as C. corymbosa as early as 1901.

Genus

Cassia

Other species in the genus