Common Name: Wislizenus' senna

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Perennial shrub to 4 m, woody throughout; stems erect or ascending, branches arching, spreading or decumbent, sometimes sparsely to densely pubescent, especially on young twigs ,

Leaves: Alternate, clustered on spurs or fasicles, petiolate, glabrous or nearly so, pinnately compound with 3-7 pairs of leaflets, margins entire; stipules inconspicuous, absent, or caducous

Flowers: In axillary clusters or few-flowered racemes with 2-6 flowers, clustered at the ends of branches; bracts very small, absent or caducous; flowers actinomorphic; calyx 5-lobed, glabrous to hairy; petals separate, orange or yellow; stamens 9-10, fertile stamens 6-8, heteromorphic; style terete; flowering

Fruits: Pods stipitate, unilocular and tardily or weakly dehiscent; flat, elongate, oblong or ellipsoidal, strongly curved, falcate, bent, or lunate and compressed between seeds; coriaceous or becoming woody, 11-many seeded; seed with elliptical line or depressio

Ecology: Chihuahuan scrub and desert grasslands on plains, dry slopes and mesas; 3608 - 5577 ft (1100-1700 m).

Distribution: se AZ, sw NM, sw TX; south to c MEX.

Notes: A distinct shrub to small tree, the dark branches can become sharp but in general lack thorns and contrast with the deciduous pinnately compound leaves clustered at nodes in fascicles with small, oval green leaflets which widen towards the apex. The clusters of showy yellow flowers followed by flat, dark brown pods are especially distinctive.

Ethnobotany: unknown

Synonyms: PalCassia wislizeni

Editor: FSCoburn 2014

Etymology: Senna is from the Arabic -sana" while the specific epithet is named after Dr. F. A. Wislizenus, a botanist who studied Mexican flora in the mid-19th century.