Senna septemtrionalis
Content
Description
Evergreen shrub or small tree up to 4 m, young branches smooth, green.
Leaves with 3-4(-5) pairs of leaflets; petiole 1.5-5 cm long, glabrous, grooved; rachis 6-12 cm long, bearing a clavate or conical gland between all except the upper pair of leaflets.
Stipules narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, 3-7 mm long, early caducous.
Sepals yellowish green, ovate-elliptic, unequal, 4-10 mm.
Petals bright yellow, ovate orbicular, shortly clawed, glabrous, 1 — 1.5( — 2) cm.
Stamens: 2 long with filaments dilated, ribbon-like, 8-11 mm with anthers 8 mm, curved, opening by an apical pore; one with similar anther but with filament 4 mm; 4 with filaments 2 mm long and anthers 4-5 mm; 3 staminodes with anthers flat, suborbicular, non-functioning.
Ovary glabrous; style linear; stigma inconspicuous.
Seeds 50-70, obovoid, olive, glossy, flat, 5-6 mm.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Jawa (Jawa present); Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia present); New Guinea present; Sumatera (Sumatera present), Mexico and Central America present
Origin uncertain but neotropic, apparently native to Mexico and Central America. Since pre-Columbian times cultivated for medical purposes and widely spread; long established in the Old World tropics including Malesia: Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, Java, New Guinea