220 LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 
COFFEE SENNA 
Cédssia 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, 
with five spreading 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.) 
Fie. 157.— Coffee Senna (Cassia 
occidentalis). x 4. 
