Cassiinae pt 1 NY-Botanical_gardens_Vol. 35_1 - Copy.pdf - Antbase

1982] CASSIINAE—SENNA 99
ed. 2, 1: 390. 1951 & 2: pl. 89, 90. 1952; De Wit, 1955, p. 263; Liu, 111. lign. Pl. Taiwan 1:
511, t. 443. 1960; Irvine, Woody Pl. Ghana 288. 1961; Little & W^adsworth, Common Trees
Pto. Rico 174, t. 74. 1964; Talbot, Forest Fl. Bombay Pres. & Sind 1: 454, fig. 257. 1976; Fl.
Taiwan 3: 201, pl. 537. 1977; Graf, Tropica 552. 1978; Malick & Krishna, 1978, fig. 5 (seed).
Amply leafy, precociously flowering trees of rapid growth, regenerating by
suckers when felled, with almost smooth gray bark and dense rounded (when old
misshapen) crown of foliage, at anthesis (3-)6-20(-30) m but in the Neotropics
seldom exceeding 15 m, the hornotinous branchlets subterete lenticellate, these
with If-stalks and axes of inflorescence ± densely strigulose-pUosulous with fine
appressed, ascending or erect hairs up to 0.05-0.2 mm, the foliage bicolored, the
stiffly chartaceous lfts above lustrously dark olivaceous, always glabrous, beneath
paler dull and minutely strigulose either along veins only or overall, the inflores­
cence an exserted or basally leafy-bracteate, either narrowly thyrsiform or py­
ramidal panicle of densely many-fld racemes, its main axis ±\-4 dm.
Stipules very early caducous subulate ±1 mm, absent from most spms.
Lvs l-3(-3.5) dm, those of vigorous leafy shoots often longer and more com­
plex than those near or at base of panicle; petiole including discolored but not
much swollen pulvinus (1.5-)2-3.5 cm, at middle 1-1.8 mm diam, terete except
for shaUow open ventral groove; rachis (4.5-)6-21(-25) cm, the longer inter-foholar
segments 1.3-2.7(-3) cm; petiolar glands 0; pulvinules 2-3.5 mm; lfts
5-12(-14) pairs, of subequal length or commonly longest near or beyond middle
of rachis and diminished toward base or toward both ends, in outline symmetri­
cally lance-, oblong- or ovate-elliptic obtuse mucronulate or (when relatively
broad) ovate or obovate emarginate, the largest 4-8 x (l.l-)1.4-2.7(-3) cm,
(1.8-)2-3.5(-4) times as long as wide, at base symmetrically rounded or broadly
cuneate, the margin plane, the straight centric midrib immersed or shallowly
depressed above, stoutly cariniform beneath, the 8-14 major camptodrome with
many intercalary secondary veins, connecting tertiary and fine reticular venules
aU subequally prominulous on both faces.
Racemes ±(10-)20-60-fld, at anthesis corymbiform, the open fls elevated be­
yond the succeeding buds, the axis including short stout peduncle becoming
(3-)4-9 cm; bracts spreading-incurved, linear-elliptic 3-6 mm, near middle abrupt­
ly dilated or sublobulate, closely conduplicate, deciduous by full anthesis; pedi­
cels at fuU anthesis and afterward (2-)2.2-3.5 cm; sepals successively explanate
during anthesis, finally subreflexed, all orbicular or almost so, carnosulous and
hence wrinkled when dried, either yellow or more commonly fuscous, the 2 outer
ones 4-6(-7) mm, the inner 6.5-9 mm; petals yellow glabrous, oblong-obovate
beyond the short claw, subhomomorphic except the vexUlar one often a Uttie
smaUer and the 2 abaxial ones a httle longer than the rest, the longest (10-)12-
17 mm; androecium glabrous, functionally 7-merous but the staminodes relatively
large, their thecae 2.2-3 x 1.3-1.8 mm; filaments of 4 median stamens 2.5-4 mm,
of the central abaxial one 4.5-5.5, of 2 latero-abaxial ones 7-12 mm, the anthers
of 4 median and central abaxial one 5-6 mm, of 2 latero-abaxial ones 5.5-8 mm,
the anthers all lanceolate in outline, scarcely beaked, bluntly sagittate at base,
dehiscent by a wide U-shaped slit sometimes divided by a tongue-like septum;
ovary densely velutinous; style glabrous, 4.5-5.5 mm, circinnately incurved at
apex, the stigmatic cavity latero-introrse; ovules 25-38.
Pod ascending or commonly bent at base and so appearing pendulous, the
Unear piano-compressed body (1.5-)2-3 dm long, 1.2-1.5(-1.6) cm wide, cuneate­
ly contracted at base into a stout stipe 5-9 mm, coarsely bicarinate by the thick
riblike sutures, the brown, stiffly coriaceous or subligneous, venulose valves
alternately expressed and depressed over the seeds, the interseminal septa not