Common and Aberrant Flowers of Cassia fistula 
Marie C. Neal^ 
While collecting herbarium specimens 
from golden shower trees {Cassia fistula L.^ 
a legume from India) at my home in Nuuanu 
Valley 5 Honolulu, I noticed that three of our 
four trees (A, C, D) bore the common form 
of flowers and that a fourth (B) bore aberrant 
forms. This discovery led to the examination 
of other trees of the same species. After study- 
ing from June to September, 1948, four or 
more flowers of each of 26 trees of C fistula in 
seven different localities in Honolulu, I found 
that trees A, C, and D definitely bore the com- 
mon form of flowers, which were nearly uni- 
form. Only tree B bore flowers deviating dis- 
tinctly from those borne by the other trees. 
Examination of all these flowers and also of 
literature dealing with C. fistula led to two con- 
clusions: (1) The stamens of the common 
form of C. fistula needed redescription; and 
(2) the petals, sepals, and stamens of the aber- 
rant form of C. fistula differed in several ways 
from those of the common form. 
COMMON FLOWERS 
The common form of the flower of C. 
fistula has 5 petals, 5 sepals, and 10 stamens, 
and it has been described many times. Wight 
(1840, pL 269) has a figure which more or less 
epitomizes these descriptions and from which 
is here reproduced a detail (Fig. 1), showing 
flowers for comparison with my drawing 
(Fig. 2) . In Wight’s figure, the three shortest 
stamens appear to be alike. The petals and 
sepals of published descriptions seemingly 
were like those of flowers on 25 of the trees 
examined by me. The stamens, however, were 
^Botanist, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 
T. H. Manuscript received April 6, 1950. 
Fig. 1 . Flowers of Cassia fistula, reproduced from 
Wight’s plate; letters added to petals to agree with 
Figure 2. 
different. As seen in a diagram of the recepta- 
cle (Fig. 3)5 the 10 stamens are actually ar- 
ranged in two series, the five inner ones being 
opposite the five petals, the five outer ones 
being opposite the five sepals. The five inner 
stamens, Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Fig. 2, A, B; 
Fig. 4, A-D), have rather short filaments and 
versatile, two-celled, slightly compressed, 
curving-obovoid anthers, each. cell opening 
by a basal pore. No. 2, the uppermost stamen, 
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