Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Senna hirsuta

Senna atomaria

woolly senna, woolly wild sensitive-plant

flor de San Jose, flor de san josé, palo zorillo
Habit Shrubs or trees, to 20 m. Leaves mesophyllous to slightly sclerophyllous, 8.5–28.5 cm, hairy, sometimes densely; stipules caducous; extrafloral nectaries 0; leaflet pairs 2–5, blades bicolored, usually obovate to elliptic, sometimes ovate, 20–130 × 10–60 mm.
Racemes

5–55-flowered, not spikelike;

bracts early caducous, to 5 mm.
Pedicels

13–28 mm.
Flowers

asymmetric, enantiostylous;

calyx greenish to yellow;

corolla yellow-orange, slightly dark-veined, longest petal 12–23 mm, highly asymmetric, 1 or both lower petals highly modified, strongly concave and folded over stamens (flag-shaped);

androecium slightly heterantherous, stamens 7 (similar in shape and size, abaxial ones slightly longer), staminodes 3;

anthers 2.8–5 mm, dehiscing by 2 short slits, apical appendage 0;

gynoecium incurved, ovules 46–70;

ovary glabrate, sometimes becoming hairy after fertilization;

style stout.
Legumes

pendulous, flat, straight, 220–370 × 80–140 mm, woody, indehiscent or splitting transversely into woody segments.
Seeds

reddish brown, obovoid to oblong-obovoid.

Senna hirsuta

Senna atomaria
Phenology Flowering late winter–late spring.
Habitat Disturbed habitats.
Elevation 0–20 m. (0–100 ft.)
Distribution
from USDA
sw United States; Mexico; South America; Asia; Africa; Pacific Islands; Australia; worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
FL; Mexico (Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chiapas, Colima, Guerrero, Jalisco, México, Michoacán, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Yucatán); Central America (including Caribbean Islands); South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 7 (1 in the flora).

Recent molecular phylogenetic analyses of Senna hirsuta (B. Marazzi et al. 2006; Marazzi and M. J. Sanderson 2010) suggest that this species is paraphyletic and may actually represent more than one species.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

As with other trees from deciduous and semi-deciduous vegetation, Senna atomaria is covered with flowers before developing the foliage (H. S. Irwin and R. C. Barneby 1982). In the flora area, it occurs naturalized only very locally in Collier County (R. P. Wunderlin et al., http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Caesalpinioideae (excluding Mimosoid clade) > Senna Fabaceae > subfam. Caesalpinioideae (excluding Mimosoid clade) > Senna
Sibling taxa
S. alata, S. armata, S. artemisioides, S. atomaria, S. bauhinioides, S. corymbosa, S. covesii, S. durangensis, S. hebecarpa, S. ligustrina, S. lindheimeriana, S. marilandica, S. mexicana, S. multiglandulosa, S. obtusifolia, S. occidentalis, S. orcuttii, S. pendula, S. pilosior, S. pumilio, S. ripleyana, S. roemeriana, S. surattensis, S. wislizeni
S. alata, S. armata, S. artemisioides, S. bauhinioides, S. corymbosa, S. covesii, S. durangensis, S. hebecarpa, S. hirsuta, S. ligustrina, S. lindheimeriana, S. marilandica, S. mexicana, S. multiglandulosa, S. obtusifolia, S. occidentalis, S. orcuttii, S. pendula, S. pilosior, S. pumilio, S. ripleyana, S. roemeriana, S. surattensis, S. wislizeni
Subordinate taxa
S. hirsuta var. glaberrima
Synonyms Cassia hirsuta, Ditremexa hirsuta Cassia atomaria, C. emarginata
Name authority (Linnaeus) H. S. Irwin & Barneby: Phytologia 44: 499. (1979) (Linnaeus) H. S. Irwin & Barneby: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 35: 588. (1982)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers