36 CAESALPINIACEAE 
base; anthers dorsifixed, versatile, uniform, dehiscing 
by longitudinal slits. Ovary hairy, flattened; ovules 
2-4; style glabrous; stigma large, capitate. Pods 
flattened with wing-like margin, indehiscent, 
sub-woody, brown, weakly longitudinally striate, 
1-4-seeded, oblong, 47-95 mm long, 14-27 mm 
wide. Seeds longitudinal, olivaceous, oblong, 
flat, c. 10 mm long, 5 mm wide. Flowering: late 
Peltophorum 
Dry season; fruits persisting throughout year. 
Fig. 14 Peltophorum, Yellow Flame Tree 
Native to tropical Australasia and Malesia and 
common in the DR; also frequently used in 
cultivation. Found in coastal vine thickets and 
margins of coastal floodplains on a variety of soil 
types. 
PILIOSTIGMA Hochst. 
A genus of 6 species, from the tropics of the New and Old World; 1 species in northern Australia. 
Formerly part of Bauhinia and retained by some authors in that genus. Characters which separate Piliostigma 
from Bauhinia and related genera include: Leaves bilobed; flowers dioecious; fertile stamens 10 (reduced in 
female flowers); stipe of ovary free; stigma large, capitate. [de Wit, 1956] 
P. malabaricum (Roxb.) Benth. 
Deciduous, densely foliaged tree to 10 m high, 
usually smaller; bark rough, shallowly fissured. All 
parts except upper surface of leaves rusty tomentose 
with short simple hairs and minute yellow fusiform 
vesicular medifixed glands. Stipules obscure. Petioles 
12-47 mm long. Leaves discolorous, often whitish 
below; apparently simple, 45-100 mm long, 65-125 
mm wide, L/W 0.7-0.9, cordate, emarginate, strongly 
palmately veined with a bristle in the sinus. Inflores- 
cence racemose, axillary and terminal, to c. 65 mm 
long. Bracts and bracteoles minute, caducous. Flowers 
dioecious, on long peduncles to c. 30 mm long. 
Hypanthium 1.5-3 mm long. Calyx c. 10 mm long, 
sepals connate for most of their length. Petals white, 
spathulate or oblanceolate, 11-16 mm long. Stamens 
in male flowers 10, included, filaments unequal; in 
female flowers variously reduced to staminodes; 
anthers dorsiventral, versatile, dehiscing by longitu- 
dinal slits. Ovary stipitate, tomentose and glandular; 
ovules c. 28; style hairy; stigma large, capitate, lobed. 
Pods on stipes 25-40 mm long; red-brown, 
indehiscent, flat, 175-230 mm long, 10-20 mm wide. 
Seeds immersed in fibrous pith; dark brown, ellipsoid, 
slightly flattened, c. 4.5 mm long, 3.5 mm wide. 
Flowering: Jan - Apr; fruiting: May - Sept. Fig. 14 
Ranging from India to northern Australia; in the 
DR known from Mt Bundey and the Daly R. Occurs 
on a variety of soil types; usually in run-on areas in 
Eucalypt forest or along stream margins. 
SENNA Miller 
Annual herbs or evergreen perennial shrubs or small trees. Hairs simple. Stipules usually present. Leaves 
compound paripinnate, usually terminated by a bristle; rachis usually with jugary or basal glands; stipellae 
absent. Bracts present; bracteoles absent. Sepals 5, free, imbricate or valvate. Petals 5, yellow, clawed, free. 
Stamens free, all 10 fertile and + equal or 7 fertile and 3 reduced to staminodes; anthers basifixed, opening by 
terminal pores, often longer than filament, sometimes beaked. Ovary mostly stipitate; style short, glabrous; 
stigma usually vaginate; ovules numerous. Pods flattened, thinly coriaceous, dehiscent, valves remaining flat 
after dehiscence. 
About 240 species; circumtropical but most species in the Americas. [Randell, 1988, 1989, 1990] 
1. Leaflets >12 pairs per leaf; glands absent on leaf rachis .........c.ccsssssessssessssesseseesesseseeseeseess S. timoriensis 
1. Leaflets <12 pairs per leaf; glands usually present on leaf rachis .........cssscesesessssesessesssseees 2 
2. Leaflets 8-11 pairs; gland at base of leaf rachis sunken; pod Winged .........:.::sssssseseeseeeseese S. alata 
2. Leaflets <8 pairs or if 8 then gland otherwise; pod not winged ........cccsccsecsessecseeseeseessesseess 3 
