美丽决明 mei li jue ming

Cassia spectabilis Candolle, Cat. Pl. Horti Monsp. 90. 1813.

Trees, evergreen, small, 5-7(-10) m tall, with long, spreading branches. Young branches, petioles, and rachises of leaves densely yellowish brown velutinous. Leaves 12-30 cm; rachis and petiole without glands; leaflets 8-15(-19) pairs, elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, 3-7 × 1-2 cm (lowermost pair usually much smaller and early caducous), abaxially densely yellowish brown velutinous, adaxially glabrous or puberulent, base subrounded and slightly oblique, apex acute, cuspidate. Flowers in terminal panicles or axillary racemes; peduncles and pedicels densely yellowish brown velutinous; bracts caducous, ovate, 4-5 mm. Sepals 5, orange-yellow, unequal: 2 outer smaller, ovate, 5-7 mm, pubescent; 3 inner larger, suborbicular, 8-11 mm in diam. Petals yellow, darkly brownish yellow veined, unequal in size, broadly to narrowly obovate, shortly clawed. Stamens 10, 7 of them fertile, anthers opening by apical pores, staminodes 3, smaller. Ovary linear, ca. 3 cm, recurved; style and stigma inconspicuous. Legume pendulous, black, narrowly cylindric, slightly compressed, 25-35 × 1-1.5 cm, slightly contracted between seeds, annulate-septate, glabrous. Seeds 50-70, suborbicular, ca. 5 mm in diam.

Cultivated in Guangdong, S Yunnan [native to tropical America; cultivated throughout the tropics].

This is a rapidly growing tree, which is usually cultivated orna­mentally; the flowers are fragrant.