MIMOSA FAMILY. Mimosaceae. 



Desert Senna, 

 Golden Cassia 

 Cassia armata 

 Yellow 

 Spring 

 Southwest 



The peculiar orange-yellow of tl 

 handsome flowers at once attracts oui 

 attention, for their tint is quite diffei 

 from the greenish-yellow, which is 

 much more common. They grow in tl 

 desert, forming big clumps, two feet high I 

 and two or three feet across, but have almost no foliage. 

 The numerous, smooth stems are very pale in color, often 

 bluish or gray, with a few dark-green leaves, with six, 

 very small, stiff leaflets, and bearing clusters of numerous, 

 sweet-smelling flowers, almost regular and about three- 

 quarters of an inch across, with a downy calyx and the | 

 small, flat pod also downy. 



MIMOSA FAMILY. Mimosaceae. 



A large family, most of them tropical; herbs, shrubs, or 

 trees; leaves alternate, generally compound, usually with 

 two or three leaflets; flowers small, regular and perfect, in 

 clusters; calyx with three to six lobes or teeth; petals of 

 the same number, separate, or more or less united, neither 

 sepals nor petals overlapping in the bud; stamens as many 

 as the petals, or twice as many, or numerous, separate or 

 united; ovary superior; fruit a pod. 



There are several kinds of Calliandra, low shrubs or herbs. 

 An odd little shrub, pretty and very Ja- 

 panese in character, about a foot tall, with 

 a few, pale-gray, spreading branches and 

 very scanty foliage. The small leaves are 

 cut into many tiny leaflets and look like 

 those of a Mimosa, the buds are deep 

 pink and the flowers are in clusters towards the ends of 

 the branches and slightly sweet-scented. They are very 

 queer-looking, but exceedingly pretty, for the purplish 

 calyx and corolla are so small that the flower appears to be 

 merely a tuft of many stamens, about an inch long, with 

 threadlike filaments, white at base and shading to bright 

 pink at the tips. The pistil is also long and pink, so the 

 whole effect is a bunch of pink fuzz, airy in form and de- 

 licately shaded in color. These little shrubs sometimes 

 bloom when they are only a few inches high, looking very 

 quaint, like dwarf plants in a toy garden, and are among 

 the earliest spring flowers. 



266 



Fairy Dusters 



Calliandra 



eriophylla. 



Pink 



Spring 



Arizona 



