XXV 



CORONILLA AND COLUTEA 

 THE "BASTARD SENNAS" 



Coronilla emerus .... The Scorpion Senna 



juncea . . . ' . The Rush Coronilla 



Colutea arborescens . . . The Bladder Senna 



cruenta, or C. sanguined, The Oriental or Bloody Senna 

 or C. orientalis 



DAINTY shrubs with pale-yellow flowers of the 

 pea type, and airy, delicate foliage these two 

 "Bastard Sennas," as they were called of old, 

 are graceful additions to any garden. Belonging to 

 the family Leguminosece, the fruit of both is naturally 

 a pod, but so different in character that, mainly on this 

 point, botanists place them in different genera, and their 

 common names are founded on the distinction. In 

 Coronilla, the " Scorpion Senna," the pods are long, 

 slender and peculiarly twisted " little long crooked 

 cods . . . whereof it took his name," wrote Gerard in 

 the sixteenth century which, when ripe, divide into 

 oblong joints, each containing a single seed. In 

 Colutea, the Bladder Senna, the wall of the pod inflates 

 to form a peculiar parchment-like bladder, from the top 



seam of which hang the tiny flattened seeds. Very 



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