I 76 CASSIA CHAMAECRISTA.—SENSITIVE PEA. 
flowers, and the hairiness or smoothness of the leaves and seed- 
vessels. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey the plant is very 
smooth in most cases. In Southern Illinois and Missouri the 
more hairy forms prevail. With all allowances for variation, it is, 
however, not probable that the colored plate No. 107, of the 
“ Botanical Magazine,” and named Cassia Chamecrista, is really 
this species, as the shape of the seed-vessel, uniform through all 
the changes of other characters in our American plant, is very 
different in that drawing, as also are some other characters. 
The family of Cass¢a has been celebrated through the medical 
properties of Cassta acutifolia, known in pharmacy as the Alex- 
andrian Senna, and it is believed that our large-flowered Sensi- 
tive Pea partakes, in some degree, of the purging character of 
its relative. 
EXPLANATIONS OF THE PLATE.—1£. Upper portion of a Massachusetts plant. 2. The annual 
root. 3. Seed-vessel nearly mature, from a plant growing in Pennsylvania, 
