Cassia roxburghii

Cassia roxburghii DC.

Family       :  Fabaceae (subfam.: caesalpinioideae)

Common Name : കടകൊന്ന(Mal)

: ईमली फैमिली (Hin)

: Red Cassia(Eng)

Red cassia is a graceful tree with spreading, drooping branches appearing to be overweighted by its wealth of clustering orange-red blossoms. The tree has alternate pinnate leaves in pairs with colored margins which further enhance the appearance. The leaves are about 1 ft long and each has 15-20 pairs of oblong 2 in leaflets. Red cassia produces clusters of pink, rose or orange flowers in axillary and terminal, often branched, racemes. Sepal cup is hairy, with sepals ovate, 4-7 mm long. Petals are 1-1.5 cm long, oblong-obovate, hairy externally. Stamens are 10, 4 long, 3 medium sized and 3 small, not swollen in the middle. The fruit is a typical legume: it is cylindrical and indehiscent (does not split open by itself), 8-12 in long, less than 1 in in diameter, and bears many seeds separated by papery partitions.

Trees, to 15 m high, bark brown; branchlets velvety pubescent. Leaves paripinnate, alternate; leaflets 8-15 pairs, subopposite, 1.5-4.5 x 1-2 cm, elliptic-oblong or ovate, base oblique or subacute, apex obtuse, retuse or mucronate, glabrous above, puberulent beneath; lateral nerves10-16 pairs, slender, faint; rachis 14-25 cm long, slender, pulvinate, pubescent; petiolule to 2 mm, puberulent; stipules ovate, lateral, muriculate, caducous. Flowers 2.5 cm across, in axillary corymbose racemes to 8 cm; pedicels to 1 cm. Calyx lobes 5, 4-7 mm, ovate, obtuse. Petals 5, 1.5-2 cm, pink to rose, turning yellow or orange, ovate- oblong, concave, pubescent without, clawed. Stamens 10, the lower 3 filaments 2.5-3 cm long, curved; others shorter; upper 3 short with reduced filaments and anthers; 4-medium with erect filaments. Ovary stipitate, 2 cm, pubescent; ovules many; style to 6 mm. Pod, 20-30 x 2 cm long, oblong, terete, torulose, black, indehiscent; seeds many, transverse, imbedded in dry pulp.

Use: It is an Exotic and a Garden plant

Distribution :  Native of Sri Lanka, common in Peninsular India

Flowering & Fruiting :  February-May