220 



LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 



COFFEE SENNA 

 Cassia occidentalis, L. 



Other English names: Negro Coffee, Magdad Coffee. 



Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : July to August. 



Seed-time: August to September. 



Range: Virginia to Indiana and southward to the Gulf of Mexico. 



Habitat: Meadows and pastures, waste places. 



Like the Partridge Pea and the Wild Senna, this weed is strongly 

 cathartic, and its young shoots, when harvested with hay greatly 

 damage the quality, as animals feed- 

 ing on it are subject to "scours." 

 The plant is an immigrant from 

 tropical America, and seems to 

 have become acclimated during its 

 slow northward march. 



Stems erect, smooth, light green, 

 much branched, and three to six 

 feet tall. Leaves pinnately com- 

 pound with four to six pairs of 

 smooth, long-pointed, ovate leaf- 

 lets, one to two inches long; the 

 slender petioles are lighter than 

 the leaflets, and near the base of 

 each is an egg-shaped, brownish 

 yellow gland. Flowers in short, 

 branching, axillary clusters ; each 

 blossom about a half-inch broad, 

 (Cassia w j tn g ve S p reac iing yellow petals 

 more nearly equal than those of 

 the perennial Wild Senna ; ten brown anthers, the upper three of 

 which are dwarfed and imperfect ; calyx-lobes oblong, obtuse. 

 Pods smooth and slender, slightly curved, four to six inches long 

 and about a quarter-inch wide, with thickened border; each 

 contains about a dozen small brown seeds, which retain their 

 vitality in the soil for at least two years and probably longer. 

 (Fig. 157.) 



