Descriptive Flora 



97 



purplish-red or rose-colored bloom early in February and March. 

 Leaves simple, alternate. Blades large, thick, smooth, shiny, 

 rounded, 1 to Zy^' across. Flowers bonnet-shaped, in clusters all 

 along the old wood, and appearing before the leaves. Corolla 

 rose pink, the 3 upper petals erect and spreading, the two lower 

 folded together enclosing the stamens and pistil. Calyx purplish- 

 red (Bordeaux red in Ridgeway's Color Chart). Pods flat, 2 to 

 31/2" long, narrowed at both ends, usually purplish or dark red. 

 Ledges of limestone bluffs, on rocky hillsides and in shaded 

 canyons. February and March. 



Cassia roemeriana Scheele. Two-leaved Senna. 



An odd-leaved, bright yellow-flowered plant one to two feet 

 tall, usually several stems coming from the same thick root. 

 Leaves pinnately compound, consisting of one pair of unequally- 

 sided leaflets. Flowers yellow, 2 to 6 on short peduncles in the 

 alils of the upper leaves. Petals five, unequal, usually con- 

 spicuously marked with brown veins. Stamens ten, unequal and 

 with curved anthers. Pods nearly straight, about one inch long. 

 March to June. Usually on poor, dry soil. 



Cassia pumilio A. Gray Dwarf Senna. 



Low plant, 2 — 4" high, with compound leaves of 2 narrow, 

 entire, unequal-sided leaflets and solitary, yellow, 5-petaled 

 flowers (y 2 — %" across) on slender axillary pedicels. Petals 5, 

 yellow, conspicuously veined with deeper yellow or brown. 

 Stamens 5 to 10, unequal, the anthers usually brown and curved 

 at their tips. Often 3 stamens are sterile and reduced to 3 short, 

 flattened yellow filaments. March, April and May. Not 

 common. 



Cassia lindheimeriana Scheele. Velvet-leaved Senna. 



Velvety-leaved bushy plants, 1 to 3' high, with several stems 

 coming from the same root and bearing clusters of yellow flowers. 

 Leaves pinnately compound. Leaflets, eight to twelve, elliptical, 

 unequal-sided, velvety and covered with shining, silky, appressed 



