Chamaecrista diphylla (L.) Greene

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

  • Family

    Caesalpiniaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Chamaecrista diphylla (L.) Greene

  • Description

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    Species Description - Of interest by leaves having a single pair of broad leaflets, which fold together at dusk. This yellow-flowered, herbaceous plant is frequent in sandy fields, on grassy banks, and rarely occurs on cliffs at lower elevations in Porto Rico. We have not observed it at altitudes greater than about 150 meters. It inhabits both moist and dry districts, and is plentiful in white sand areas of the northern coastal plain distribution of the species is through Santo Domingo and Haiti, Cuba, and on the continent from Vera Cruz to Panama and Brazil. For an account of the genus Chamaecrista we refer to our description of Chamaecrista Swartzii. Chamaecrista diphylla (leaves with one pair of leaflets), is perennial, upright, or depressed, branched, smooth throughout, or the leaf-stalks and stipules hairy-fringed, it may reach about a meter in height, but is usually much lower, sometimes prostrate. The characteristically striate-nerved, pointed, and tipped stipules are from 5 to 8 millimeters long, with a heart-shaped base; the leafstalks are shorter than the stipules and bear 1 or 2 glands; the 2 leaflets are obliquely obovate, rounded, flabellate-nerved from 6 to 30 millimeters long. The flowers are solitary in the axils, on very slender stalks longer than the leaves; the sepals are papery in texture, closely many-nerved, from 6 to 10 millimeters long, the yellow petals about as long. The pod is from 3 to 6 centimeters long, from 3 to 6 millimeters wide, long-hairy.

  • Discussion

    Zarzabacoa Two-leaved Partridge -pea Family Cassia diphylla Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 376, 1753 Chamaecrista diphylla Greene, Pittonia 4: 28. 1890.