0109 



BLADDER SENNA. 



Family: LEGUMINOSAE 



Reproductive system: DlADELPHY,DECANDRY 



The bladder senna, Colutea arborescens, LINN., grows ten or twelve feet tall. The 

 trunk is straight, densely branched, with alternate, imparipinnate leaves that are made 

 up of nine to eleven leaflets, oval-rounded and obtuse at their indented tips. The flowers 

 are yellow and are arranged in sparse clusters. The green calyx is a single unit with five 

 sepals. The papilionaceous corolla has a large uplifted standard marked at its base with 

 a reddish line. The carina is smaller than the standard, but larger than the wings. The 

 ten stamens, joined into two bunches, are enclosed in the carina. The ovary is longer 

 than the stamens; it turns into a diaphanous vesicular pod containing twenty to thirty 

 seeds attached inside along both sides of the bottom suture. 



FLOWERS: during the whole summer. It often bears flowers and fruit at the same 



time. 



RANGE: southern France, Italy, and the Levant. 



NOMENCLATURE. German, der Blasenbaum, der Linsenbaum. English, common- 

 bladder-senna. Italian, solano, solatro. Spanish, espanata-lobos. Commonly, le faux sene 

 [Translator's note: false senna]. 



HISTORY. The bladder senna appears to have been noted by Theophrastus 

 [Translator's note: The Greek philosopher Theophrastus, 372-287 B.C.E., a successor to 

 Aristotle, wrote important botanical treatises]. Thereafter there was no further mention of 

 it in any botanical works until it was described by writers in the sixteenth century. 



USES. This tree ought to be included in groves in spring and in autumn, because 

 its flowers make a very lovely appearance in both seasons. 



