Scientific name: Senna bicapsularis (L.) Roxb.

Family: Fabaceae

Common name: Christmas Senna, Money Bush, Winter Cassia

In February, we will focus on a plant that is now in bloom. It is an upright perennial shrub with woody, striated stems and slightly drooping branches. When given adequate support, it behaves like a climber. It can reach a height of 3 meters, although it usually grows to about 1.5 meters. The leaves are olive green, compound, with between 2 and 4 pairs of ovate leaflets, with rounded apices and a slightly succulent texture.

Winter Cassia flowers profusely. The flowers grow in clusters that emerge from the leaf axils, measure around one and a half centimeters, and are a striking yellow color decorated with brown lines; the fruit is a cylindrical legume between 10 and 20 centimeters long.

The area where it grows naturally is northern South America, but it has been cultivated and naturalized in many areas of the tropics. In its place of origin, it is attributed with properties in traditional medicine and also in rituals. The name seems to derive from the Arabic word sana, which referred to a shrub of this genus with medicinal properties. The legume is divided into two parts by a false partition, which may account for the name of the species, bicapsularis, which has two capsules. There are several specimens in the lake in the southern part of La Concepción. They were grown in our experimental greenhouse from seeds requested through the Index Seminum, the exchange we have with other botanical gardens around the world. They arrived in March 2023 from the Oasis Garden in Fuerteventura and were planted in April 2024.