cassia javanica vs nodosa

[Laisla87]

I am having a little trouble differentiating between C. Javanica and nodosa .. anyone know the difference?

I have C.fistula growing very well in my yard and have just bought a large C.Javanica. I'm wondering how cool tolerant C.Javanica is compared to C.fistula. If anyone has any info it would be very much appreciated

Thanks in advance

[LJG]

I would assume our climates are pretty close but you might be warmer overall. I am here in Souther California. I planted C.fistula in the ground 4 years ago. It is so slow! A friend I gave my other plant to that is maybe 10 more miles inland has his to about 15 feet now. So I am just outside the winter heat zone it prefers.

Now while I can't help with Cassia javanica ssp. nodosa, I do grow Cassia javanica ssp. agnes and it does well here. I guess it comes from the mountains in Thailand. So hopefully it is cool weather tolerant and will flower here. Tropical Javanica would never live for me.

Also, if you can find it, Cassia bakeriana is really turning into a winner here. It handles the cold and grows faster then the other two.

[mnorell]

This is a very confusing and complex (and extraordinarily beautiful) species over a large geographic range...and there are apparently lots of intermediate forms. And of course it easily hybridizes with certain other species (famously, with C. fistula). There are a number of forms of C. javanica and this has caused much confusion over the years and in various locations. A Tropical Garden Flora states that the most recent classification at the time of that book's publication recognized four forms, and the form commonly cultivated in Hawai'i is officially C. javanica v. indochinensis (and the efloraofindia website places this in synonymy with C. nodosa).

The species complex ranges from India to Thailand, Malaysia to southern China to the Philippines. So it seems logical there would be lots of genetic difference, not only morphologically but also in cold-tolerance and perhaps also heat-tolerance in terms of wanting to flower in a given subtropical or warm-temperate climate. A fellow I met once, I think at a Palm Society meeting in the late 1980s in SoCal, told me he had a specimen growing and blooming in Moraga, California, and which had endured 26F. I had one of these (from Hawai'i seed) growing at my place in Los Feliz (Los Angeles) in the early '90s but I didn't track it after I moved and I think it is now gone for whatever reason. The one I have growing here in the Florida Keys is not large enough yet to bloom but has a smooth trunk (at least so far) and with a pair of noticeable, crescent-shaped stipules at the base of each leaf.

Here are some of the foliar differences noted between these in various sources:

- C. javanica v. javanica has a THORNY trunk and very large, distinctive crescentic stipules 1/2"-3/4" long, flowers at the ends of leafy twigs. Leaflets have been noted as "usually obtuse" or as "a little shorter, rounded ovals with no gloss, smooth and silky to the touch."
- C. javanica v. nodosa (aka C. nodosa) has a smooth trunk and tiny crescentic stipules, flowers on the branches behind the leaves. Leaflets are "pointed at the apex, leathery and slightly glossy."
- C. javanica v. indochinensis Again, possibly the same as C. javanica v. nodosa, and the form supposedly mostly cultivated in Hawai'i, and perhaps in Florida as well.

- C. javanica v. renigera (which has sometimes been considered a separate species, C. renigera), according to efloraofindia: "leaflets oblong, densely velvety, tip mucronate; leafy bracts at base of each flower; stipules large leafy"

Kirsten Llamas, author of the excellent bookTropical Flowering Plants and associated with Fairchild Gardens, posted this brief compendium of the species on Tropicsphere:

Melissa Luckow, 1996 Baileya Vol. 23 wrote:

\"As discussed by Irwin & Barneby (1982) there is a great deal of variation in this species. The charaters that have been used in the past to distinguish species include pubescence, size of the stipules, leaflet shape, position of the inflor. on new or old wood, size of the calyx and petals, size of the fertile anthers, and chromosome numbers. Non of the morphological features show a constant correlation with geography, which led Irwin and Barneby to recognize four varieties...

Larsen (1992) has subsequently recognized six subsp of C javanica rather than four varieties, but without documentation of the characters that distinguish the taxa or evidence that they are correlated with geographic distribution (this treatment also introduced an orthographic error, C javanica var pubiflora for C javanic v. pubifolia. In the absence of justification for the change in rank, I choose to follow the well-documented treatment of Irwin and Barneby (1982).

These include C. javanica v. javanica [broad foliacious stipules and large sepals]; C. jav. indochinensis [narrower foliacious stipules and smaller sepals], C. jav. v. pubifolia and C jav. microcalyx [subulate rather than foliacious stipules, - microcalyx with smaller sepals petals and anthers than v pubifolia. The majority of garden stock in America belongs to C jav. v. indochinensis\".

However, it must be noted that in their native range all of the above varieties have been intermingled through cultivation for hundreds of years and probably represent a genetic pool or cultigen.

There's more about this species in the full TropicSphere thread here.

[Laisla87]

Thank you for your input.

I took a look at the label of mine and it is C.Javanica 'Java showers'. It looks like it has died back slightly last winter but has lots of leaves now. I am not sure what is the difference between this one and C. Javanica 'Agnes'.

Bakeriana sounds great. The pics I could find of it show that it flowers very prolifically.

There is a variety found in Australia, 'Rainbow Showers' which is a very showy cross between Javanica & fistula.

I have posted some pics of another cassia I grew from seed. I originally thought they were Fistula, but the leaflets are too pointed and narrow for it to be them. They were fast growing but have slowed down now at 2 feet tall for some reason. Any idea on which one it might be?

I did find the following site which attempts to explain the differences between the various cassias - but for the most part, it just confused me more!

http://toptropicals.com/html/toptropicals/articles/trees/cassia_pink.htm

[Laisla87]

the pic