Senna fruticosa

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Senna fruticosa

Description

Shrub or small tree up to 6 m high, all young parts greyish pubescent. Leaves with 2 pairs of leaflets; petiole slender, puberulous, c. 3 cm long; rachis slender 1-3 cm, bearing an oblong, nipple-shaped gland between the lower pair of leaflets. Stipules linear, 3-4 mm long, early caducous. Sepals oblong-obovate, yellowish green often mingled with red, puberulous, 7-11 mm. Petals yellow, pubescent on both sides, broadly obovate to orbicular, 2-2.5 cm. Stamens 1 (or 6): 3 with filaments filiform, 2-4 mm long and anthers glabrous, strongly curved, 6-7 mm, rostrate at apex, opening by an apical pore; 4 (or 3) with filaments dilated distally, 2-3 mm and anthers similar but thicker and 8-9 mm long; upper 3 stamens usually absent. Ovary sessile, densely appressed pubescent, style slender, stigma inconspicuous. Seeds 80-100 embedded in a foetid, black pulp, compressed ovoid, 5-6 mm, dark brown.

Distribution

Asia-Tropical: Borneo (Sabah present); Jawa (Jawa present); New Guinea present; Sulawesi (Sulawesi present), E Kalimantan present, Mexico and Central America
Indigenous to Mexico and Central America. Cultivated throughout the tropics as ornamental, also in the Malesian area (recorded from Java, Sabah, E Kalimantan, Celebes, New Guinea). It seems rarely to have escaped cultivation and become naturalized. Seed setting is said to be poor.

Uses

Commonly grown as ornamental.

Citation

de Wit 1956 – In: Webbia: 247
Corner 1940: Wayside Trees: 388
K. & S.S. Larsen 1984 – In: Fl. Thailand: 116.
Backer & Bakh.f 1964 – In: Fl. Java: 537
Verdc. 1979 – In: Manual New Guinea Leg., Lae Bot. Bull.: 43