242 PLANTS GROWING IN SANDY SOIL, 
numerous seeds. Leaves: short; lanceolate,; almost sessile with arrow-shaped 
stipules at the base. Stem: erect; much branched and beset with dull 
bristles, 
After the seeds have ripened and become detached, the pods 
of this plant make very cunning little rattles, as every country 
child knows ; and this factis referred to in its common and 
Greek names. Unfortunately, the seeds and leaves contain a 
poisonous substance which causes animals that eat of them to 
slowly decline in vigour. 
C. rotundifolia is a prostrate species that is well known in 
parts of the south from Virginia to Mississippi. It favours a 
dryer soil than the above plant. Its seed pods are very simi- 
lar. 
WILD SENNA, (Plate CXXV) 
Cdssta Marztlandica. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Seuna. Fellow. Scentless. New England southward July. 
and westward. 
Flowers: growing in racemes on slender axillary peduncles. Calyx: of five 
almost separate sepals. Corolla: of five nearly equal petals, two of which are 
dotted with reddish purple at the base. Stamens: ten; anthers, irregular, 
blackish and often imperfect. ods: long; hairy. Leaves: pinnate; divided 
into six to nine narrowly oblong leaflets tipped with a little point at the top and 
having a club-shaped gland at the base of the petiole. Stem: four to ten feet 
high ; smooth. 
If there are rebels among the flowers the wild senna surely is 
one ; for it has, apparently without rhyme or reason, deserted the 
papilionaceous corolla of the pulse family. It is a common 
species in the north: and for its beauty has been cultivated in 
gardens. The dried leaves and pods are well known in medi- 
cine, being used for similar purposes as those for which the 
oriental senna is employed. Wild senna is found much more 
frequently in wet meadows or marshes than it is in sandy 
soil, 

