Description:

• Unarmed trees
• Leaves simply paripinnate; leaflets frequently 5-12-jugate; stipules various, conspicuous
• Inflorescence an axillary, many-flowered raceme, sometimes cauliflorous; bracteoles 2, at base of pedicels
• Sepals obtuse, pubescent to glabrescent
• Petals 5, imbricate, subisomorphic, vexillar one interior in bud, usually much larger than calyx, sometimes clawed
• Stamens 10, sometimes unequal, its members strongly accrescent towards abaxial side of flower; filaments twice to many times as long as the dorsifixed anthers, those of 3 long abaxial stamens sigmoidally arcuate, those of the rest straight; anthers dehiscing by terminal or basal pores, or at both ends
• Ovary sessile or stalked, frequently curved, with several to many ovules; style with terminal, truncate stigma
• Pod terete, bluntly tetragonal or compressed-tetragonal, sometimes sulcate along sutures, or compressed but turgid, usually much elongate, indehiscent, valves firmly papery, leathery or ligneous, cavity divided by transverse septa into 1 rank or in addition by a longitudinal septum into 2 ranks of 1-seeded locules
• Seeds transverse, occasionally oblique or longitudinal, ± compressed parallel to septa
• x = 6, 7, 8, 9, 13 (B-chromosomes, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Cassia L. emend. Gaertn.
  • Linnaeus: 376 (1753)
  • Harvey: 271 (1862)
  • Hutchinson: 246 (1964)
  • Brenan: 47 (1967)
  • Gordon-Gray: 69 (1977)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 30, circumtropical (America, Africa, Madagascar, Asia, Malaysia, Australia)
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Cassia abbreviata Oliv. subsp. beareana (Holmes) Brenan, N Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province and Mpumalanga; some other species introduced as ornamentals