CASSIA FISTULA. 
Frurr. A legume, either continuous (one-celled) or (a loment) 
jointed into one-seeded cells. 
Seeps. Solitary or several, destitute of albumen. 
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THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS, 
Cassia, Sepals five, scarcely united at base, nearly equal. 
Petals five, unequal, but not papilionaceous. Stamens ten, dis- 
tinct. Three upper anthers often manly ; three lower ones 
beaked. Legume many seeded. 
Calyx five-sepalled. Corol five-petalled. Anthers three, lower ones beaked, and 
on longer incurved filaments, Legume membranaceous 
THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
t 
Cassia Fisruna. Trunk from forty to fifty feet high, about 
the size of a walnut tree. Leaves large, composed of from five 
to six pairs of oval and acute folicles, from three to five inches 
long. Flowers large, yellow, in oem hanging from the axilla 
of the leaves. 
Leaves in six pairs. Petioles glandless. Legume reniform. 
THE ARTIFICIAL CHARACTERS. 
> Crass Decanpria. Stamens ten. Orpen Monocynta Fruit, 
alegume, Ovary single and simple. 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
Cassta Fistuna is a native of Egypt and the East Indies, but 
is now naturalized in the West Indies and South America, It 
was known to the Arab and Greek physicians of the middle ages, 
and is ‘supposed to have received its name from its agreeable 
odor, somewhat resembling that of the celebrated spice. 
The tree rises to the height or forty or fifty feet, with a 
large trunk, covered with a soft, cineritious bark, and is much 
branched at the top. The leaves are composed of six pairs of 
_ ovate, pointed, undulated pinne, of a pale green color, with 
many transverse nerves, and peduncled. The stipules are 
pparent. The flowers which appear in June are of a 
zolk , placed upon long pendent terminal spikes. The 
leaves of ‘thus calyx are crenated, blunt and greenish. The 
— —— spreading and waved. om ie tees 
