356 



Dr. TVallich on Cassia Lanceolala. 



[April 



The plant is 3 to 4, rarely 5 feet high ; erect, branchy, of an elegant 

 rounded form and aspect, and of an uniform pallid glaucous colour, 

 corresponding'well with the elegant clusters of large pale-yellow blos- 

 soms, which are produced in abundance during several months in suc- 

 cession ; the whole forming an object of great beauty, not surpassed by 

 any of the smaller species of the extensive and difficult genus to which 

 it belongs. Root long, woody, tapering, perpendicular, sending forth 

 few branches only ; annual, rarely biennial. Stem cylindric, as far as 

 an inch thick at the base, together with the thicker branches covered 

 with a rust-coloured slightly scabrous epidermis, which on close inspec- 

 tion is found marked with minute parallel fissures. Branches round, 

 pale-green, unequally and obtusely angular, very slightly flexuose to- 

 wards their end, which, as well as the leaves, are glaucous and perfect- 

 ly opaque ; while young there are a few short sub-adpressed hairs on 

 both sides of the leaflets as well as on the branches, which disappear 

 by age. Tender shoots covered with much grey pubescence. Leaves 

 petioled, pinnate, spreading, 1 or 2 inches distant from each other, 

 scattered, from 6 to 10 inches long. Common petiol cylindric, slender, 

 about 2 inches long, with a narrow furrow on the upper side ; its base 

 swelled and gibbous below. About the middle on the upper side, across 

 the furrow, is seen a slightly elevated line covered with short, minute, 

 brown evanescent hairs ; this is also the case between the opposite lea- 

 flets on the slender, straight rachis, which ends under the terminal pair 

 of pinnse with a short, small and deciduous cuspis. Pinnee exactly op- 

 posite, in 6 to 10 pairs, spreading, \\ to 2 inches long, slightly increas- 

 ing in length from the base of the compound leaf to its apex, narrow or 

 linear-lanceolate, tapering-acute, the midrib ending in a very minute 

 point, margins gently decurved, base a little unequal, the upper half 

 being acute, the lower a little broader and blunt; of a thickish, almost 

 fleshy brittle texture, flat, very pallid and glaucous ; both sides, espe- 

 cially the lower, have a number of minute adpressed short hairs, which 

 disappear by age ; the upper side is marked with some oblique capillary 

 nerves, the lower by a very slender whitish rib. Partial petiols very 

 short, measuring scarcely a line in length, cylindric. Stipules small, 

 fleshy, opposite, spreading and recurved, withering, lanceolate, acute 

 channelled, smooth, with an oblique semicordate base, the outer side 

 of which is thicker than the rest, rounded, concave below ; wjjhin the 

 base are a number of black, short, subulate loosely attached and deci- 

 duous hairs or ciliae. Racemes solitary in all the upper axils, pedun- 

 cled, erect, somewhat incurved, as long as the leaves, bearing about 20 

 large bright yellow T or gold-coloured, inodorous, short pedicelled flow- 

 ers. Common peduncle one- third longer, and considerably thicker 

 than the petiol, cylindric; rachis somewhat flattened and waved ; pedi- 

 cels one-flowered, very short, with a joint at the middle, and thence 



