Cassia javanica var. indochinensis

Cassia javanica L. var. indochinensis Gagnep.

Family : Caesalpiniaceae

Common Name : ജാവാ കാഷ്യ(Mal)

  Pink Shower (Eng)

IUCN Status : Least concern (LC) -

When in bloom, Java cassia can be a stunning sight, with the tree covered with crimson-pink flowers. It is a deciduous. tree with branchlets drooping, slender, thinly greyish. Flowers are borne in lat­eral racemes on short side branches. This character distinguishes it easily from Agnes Cassia, which has flowers borne in panicles, at ends of young leafy shoots.

Trees, up to 10 m high; bark grayish, smooth. Leaves alternate, pinnate; leaflets opposite or subopposite, 3-10 pairs, 2.5-10 x 2-4 cm, ovate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate-elliptic, sub-acuminate, puberulous, almost equal-sided at the base; rachis 10-17 cm long, terete, pubescent; stipules reniform, ca 1 cm long, pubescent beneath, caducous. Racemes 6-30 cm long, axillary to upper leaves or from leafless nodes; bracts 7-8 mm long; bracteoles 1.5-2.5 mm long, similar to bracts; ovate-lanceolate, acute-acuminate. Sepals 4-5 mm long, narrowly ovate, obtuse. Petals 1.8-3 cm, spathulate, pubescent outside, pink or carmine. Stamens 10, all fertile; three large filaments 2.2-2.5 cm long, with a distinct globular swelling in the middle, twice curved; 7 filaments half as long, almost straight; anthers opening by 2 basal pores and through longitudinal rim. Ovary and style hairy; stigma sublateral, punctiform. Pod 30-60 x 1.5-2 cm, terete, blackish, transversely septate; seeds broadly ovate

Uses : Garden plant

Distribution : India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Malesia

Flowering & Fruiting : February-September