Senna alata

  • Title

    Senna alata

  • Authors

    Howard S. Irwin, Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Senna alata (L.) Roxb.

  • Description

    148.  Senna alata (Linnaeus) Roxburgh, Fl. Indica 2: 349. 1824, based on Cassia alata Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 378. 1753.—"Habitat in America calidiore Holotypus (Brenan, 1967, p. 64), BM (hb. Cliffort., Cassia No. 3, a single leaf)!—Lectotypiflcation by LINN 528.26, proposed by De Wit (1955, p. 232), cannot be sustained, the specimen only acquired by Linnaeus from P. Browne in 1758; cf. Isely, 1975, p. 197.—Cassia herpetica Jacquin, Observ. Bot. 2: 24, t. 45, fig. 2. 1767, nom superfl. based on Cassia no. 9 P. Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 224. 1756, which explicitly = C. alata L.—Herpetica alata (Linnaeus) Rafinesque, Sylva Tellur. 123. 1838.

    (?) Cassia bracteata Linnaeus fil., Suppl. PI. Syst. Veg. 232. 1781.—"Habitat in Surinamo. C. G. Dalberg."—Holotypus, S (hb. Linn.), seen in microfiche (IDC 5075. 166: II.4)!—Provisionally equated with C. alata by Lamarck, Encycl. Meth. 1: 648. 1785, and decisively so by Wight & Arnott, Prod. fl. pen. Ind. or. 287. 1834; this disposition, accepted by Vogel (1837, p. 21) and confirmed by Bentham (1871, p. 550), subsequently traditional. The typus, consisting of a half a leaf and a flowering raceme with ovaries just developing, is ambiguous between S. alata and S. reticulata, and the protologue, which calls for "foliola . . . subtus mollia, cana" would suggest the latter. By following tradition, we evade the consequences of replacing the well-known epithet reticulata (Willdenow, 1809) with the long buried bracteata (Linnaeus fil., 1781).

    Cassia alata Linnaeus var. rumphiana DeCandolle, Prod. 2: 492. 1825.—"In Java. Herpetica Rumph., [Herb. Amboin.] 7, [=Auctuarium, ed. Burmann: 35,] t. 18. [1755]."—Holotypus, the cited plate!

    Cassia alata var. perennis Pampanini, Nuovo Giorn. Bot. Ital., n. ser. 14: 595. 1907.—". . . in India orientali, probabiliter in insula Penang."—Described from a plant "nato spontanea- mente nell Orto botanico di Firenze nel estate 1905," this surmised to have arisen from seed sown in 1901.—Holotypus, coll. 23.XI.07, FI!

    Cassia alata sensu Colladon, 1816, p. 91; Vogel, 1837, p. 21; Wight, Ic. Pl. Ind. Or. 1(13): t. 253/890. 1840; Bentham, 1870, p. 126 & 1871, p. 550; Hooker, Curtis’s Bot. Mag. 105: t. 6425. 1879; Sesse & Mocino, 1888, p. 60 & 1893, p. 101; Prain, J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal 66(2, pt. 1): 161. 1897; Perkins, Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herb. 10: 160. 1907; Merrill, Philip. J. Sci. Bot. 5: 50. 1910; Rock, Legum. Pl. Hawaii 83, t. 32. 1920; Standley, 1922, p. 410; Blake Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herb. 24: 90, pl. 30. 1922; Merrill, Enum. Philip. Pl. 2: 262. 1923; Pio Correa, Dicc. Pl. Ut. Bras. 2: 518 + fig. 1931; Zingg, Philip. J. Sci. 54: 256. 1934; Britton & Killip, 1936, p. 178; Standley & Steyermark, 1946, p. 109; Boelcke, Darwiniana 7(2): 301, t. VIII, fig. e (seed); Pellegrin, Les Leg. du Gabon 96. 1948; Leon & Alain, 1951, p. 267, fig. 111; Schery, 1951, p. 53; Steyaert, 1952, p. 507; Dimitri & Rial Alberti, 1954, fig. 12; De Wit, 1955, p. 231; Symon, 1966, p. 95; Brenan, 1967, p. 64; Aubreville, 1968, p. 53, pl. 8, fig. 6; Henderson, Malay Wild Fls. 1: 98, fig. 96. 1974; Isely, 1975, p. 63, map 16; Peixoto et al., 1978, 247, estampa 2.—Merian, Hist. Gen. Insectes t. 58. 1647, often referred here, =Inga sp!

    Cassia bracteata sensu Willdenow, Sp. pl. 2: 525. 1799; Poiret, Encycl. Meth. Suppl. 2: 129. 1811; Colladon, 1816, p. 92.

    Herpetica alata sensu Cook & Collins, Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herb. 8(2): 159, t. 39. 1903; Britton & Rose, 1930, p. 243; Degener, New 111. Fl. Hawaiian Is. pl. s.n. 1932.

    Rankly leafy shrubs of rapid growth, either monopodial branched distally or several-stemmed from the ground and ± as broad as tall, at anthesis commonly 1-4 m, less often (in wet tropical Venezuela, Ecuador, the Guianas) arborescent and 4-6(-10) m with trunk to 7 cm diam, the older branches stout, pith-filled, the terete striate annotinous ones with lf-stalks, at least the major veins of the dorsal face of lfts and all axes of inflorescence densely minutely puberulent and often also pilosulous with erect pale lustrous hairs up to 0.1-0.25(-0.3) mm, the ample membranous lfts subconcolorous, dull or moderately lustrous, usually glabrous on upper face except for a line of thickened trichomes along midrib, less often thinly minutely pilosulous near the pulvinus or exceptionally overall, the vertical racemes at first axillary, sometimes later forming a candelabriform panicle, each capped in early and mid-anthesis with a blunt cone of imbricated yellow bracts.

    Stipules firmly herbaceous deltate-trigangular or lance-ovate, dilated and auriculate-amplexicaul on the side further from the petiole, excluding the auricle 6-16(-20) mm, the coarsely nerved blade commonly reflexed or replicate in age, becoming dry, deciduous or subpersistent.

    Lvs (2-)3-7(-7.5) dm; petiole including the discolored, when dry shrunken pulvinus 1-3.5(-5) cm, the true petiole often subobsolete, the first, relatively small pair of lfts inserted next to or shortly distant from the pulvinus and turned backward toward the stem; rachis ±1-6 dm, the segments rounded dorsally, on ventral side widely openly sulcate and slightly dilated upward, the sulcus interrupted between each pair of lfts, the terminal seta modified into a recurved deltate-subcordate acute conduplicate herbaceous blade 2.5-4.5 mm; petiolar glands 0; pulvinules (orange when fresh, then blackish) 2.5-6 mm; lfts (6-)7-14 pairs, ± strongly accrescent distally but either the distal or the penultimate pair, rarely some pairs near middle of blade largest, the terminal pair usually broadest, these broadly oblong or obovate from inequilaterally rounded or proximally semicordate base, 7-19(-21) x (3-)3.5-9.5(-13.5) cm, 1.2-2.5 times as long as wide, at apex usually broadly obtuse or subemarginate mucronulate, rarely depressed- deltate subacute, the margin plane or subrevolute, the centric straight midrib immersed or shallowly depressed above, cariniform beneath, the 10-16 pairs of camptodrome with (few, random) intercalary secondary veins and all tertiary and reticular venules finely prominulous on both faces, often more sharply so beneath.

    Peduncles stout, incurved to vertical, 6.5-17 cm, near base 2.5-7 mm diam; racemes many-fld, dense before anthesis but the tapering axis much elongating, in fruit becoming 1.5-6 dm; bracts firm, yellow or orange with pallid submembranous margin, fuscous when dry, broadly rhombic-oblanceolate or obovate- flabellate, deltately subacute (1.3-) 1.7-3 cm, densely puberulent dorsally, nidu- lating the young fl-buds, caducous as the pedicel elongates; pedicels at and after anthesis (4-)5-11 mm; fl-buds obliquely obovoid obtuse, puberulent (but inner sepals glabrate); sepals petaloid, deep chrome- or orange-yellow, little graduated, oblong-obovate, cucullate at tip, 11.5-16 mm, finely reticulate-venulose, the venation immersed; petals glabrous, bright yellow drying stramineous brown- veined, conspicuously clawed, subheteromorphic, the vexillar one longest (15-) 16-23(-24) mm, its blade subquadrately obovate obtuse or emarginate, sometimes lyrately constricted near middle, the rest more broadly obovate, the 2 abaxial sometimes of slightly different lengths, all concave at full anthesis forming a bowl-shaped perianth; androecium glabrous, functionally 2-merous, the filaments of 4 median stamens 2.6-4 mm, of 2 large fertile ones dilated and 3.5-5 mm, of 1 abaxial one dilated and 6-10 mm, the anthers of 4 median and 1 centric abaxial stamens sterile or almost so, narrowly oblong straight, including the por- rect, biporose beak 2.6-4.6 mm, those of the fertile abaxial ones stoutly lunately lanceolate 9.5-13 mm, unequally sharply sagittate at base, at apex abruptly truncate 2-umbonate and contracted into an abruptly divaricate biporose beak ±0.5 mm; ovary densely fuscous-puberulent and sometimes in addition minutely white- pilosulous; style filiform or gently tapering distally, strongly evenly incurved, 4-5.5(-6) x 0.2-0.4 mm; ovules ±44-58.

    Pod stiffly widely ascending, subsessile, broadly linear in outline, straight or a trifle decurved, sharply tetragonal, carinate by the sutures, winged lengthwise down the middle of each valve, 11-18(-19) cm long, including the wings 2-2.8 cm wide, 9-12 mm thick from suture to suture, the papery, regularly crenulate wings 4-9(10) mm wide, the green, thinly fleshy valves becoming blackish and stiffly papery, puberulent or glabrate, transversely venulose, the cavity rhombic in cross section, the well-developed membranous interseminal partitions 2.5-3 mm apart, the locules occupying the whole cavity; dehiscence tardy, primarily through the inertly gaping ventral suture; seeds rhomboid widest above the middle, compressed parallel to the septa, their wide faces 5.5-6.8 x 4.5-5.6 mm, the testa smooth or obscurely rugulose, tan or dark brown, dull or moderately lustrous, crackled in age, the areole on the narrow faces elliptic or linear-elliptic 2.1-3 x 0.5-0.9 mm. n = 12.—Collections (Neotropical only): 126.

    Riverbanks, lake shores, margins of ponds and ditches, seasonally wet savannas, becoming colonially weedy in disturbed brush-woodland, pastures, orchards and plantations, along roads and in waste places, mostly below 500 m but ascending to 1050 m on the Brazilian Planalto and up to 2000 m in New Guinea, native probably along rivers of the Guianas and perhaps around the periphery of the Orinoco and Amazon basins in Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia, now fully but erratically naturalized in the wet and seasonally humid Neo- and Paleotropics, in the New World from s. Mexico (Nayarit e. through Balsas Depression to s. Oaxaca and the Gulf lowlands) to n.-centr. Colombia, and through the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico) and the Leeward and Windward Is. to Trinidad; from the Maracaibo and Orinoco basins in Venezuela s. and s.-e. through the Guianas and the Amazon delta region to Ceara, coastal Bahia, the highlands of s.-centr. Goias, and less commonly on the sources of the Amazon from s.-e. Ecuador to n.-e. Bolivia, thence s., probably or certainly adventive, to Paraguay, n. Argentina (Corrientes) and coastal s.-e. Brazil (Parana, Santa Catarina); cultivated in warm temperate United States, especially on the Gulf Coastal Plain and in s. California, locally spontaneous in peninsular Florida; fully established by mid-XVII century in Java and now widespread, both as a weed and in cultivation for medicine and ornament, through equatorial Africa and from s. India and Sri Lanka to s. China and the Philippines, thence extending through Malesia to n. Australia and e. through Micronesia to the Society and Hawaiian Is.—Fl. in N. and n. S. America mostly IX-III, in equatorial latitudes nearly throughout the year, s.-ward mostly I-VI.—Flor del secreto (s. Mexico); tulipan (s. Mexico); guacamaya francesa (Cuba); taratana, talentro (Antilles, variants of tarantan); mocote (Venezuela), dartrier (French colonial America); soroncon- til (Nicaragua); guajavo (Dominican Republic); Carrion Crow bush (Guyana); taperiba guazu (Argentina); ringworm shrub, candlesticks (U.S.); seven golden candlesticks (Australia); acapulco (Philippines, with several variants, denoting origin in Mexico), in s. America known by the same names as S. reticulata, q.v.; Aubreville, Roxburgh, Zingg, Steyaert, De Wit, Merrill, 11. cc. quote many vernacular terms in use in Africa and Indo-Malesia.