Chamaecrista lechenaultiana (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Chamaecrista lechenaultiana (DC.) Degener

Family: Leguminosae - Caesalpinioideae

Synonyms

• Cassia lechenaultiana DC.,
• C. mimosoides L. subsp. lechenaultiana (DC.) Ohashi.

Vernacular names

• Japanese tea senna (En)
• Thailand: sa-kham-khom
• Vietnam: nroj kua dis (Hmong).

Distribution

Tropical South and continental South-East Asia, but introduced and sometimes naturalized in Malesia. Often also cultivated elsewhere in the tropics and subtropics.

Uses

A self-seeding green manure, recommended for humid areas at low altitudes. It can be grazed by cattle and buffaloes. In Japan, leaves are used in the preparation of some kinds of tea called "kobo-cha" and "nemu-cha".

Observations

• Herb with woody base, up to 1.5 m tall, upright or prostrate, branches grey to yellow-pubescent, suffused with red.
• Leaves sensitive to the touch, pinnately compound; rachis 5-12 cm long; leaflets 8-30 pairs, sessile, asymmetrical, sickle-shaped, 4-12 mm × 2-3 mm, margin ciliate, with a prominent purple gland just below the lowest pair.
• Inflorescence a 3-4-flowered, short raceme; pedicel 7-10 mm long.
• Petals yellow, lanceolate to obovate, 6-15 mm long; stamens 10, with short filaments.
• Pod flat, straight, 3-5 cm × 0.5 cm, glabrous to hairy, dehiscent, with 10-15 flat-ovoid black seeds of 4 mm × 3 mm.

C. lechenaultiana occurs in open grassland and as a weed, from 500-1600 m altitude in Indo-China, up to 300 m in West Java. It responds well to pruning. Lechenaultiana is often misspelled as " leschenaultiana ".

Selected sources

• Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr., R.C., 1963-1968. Flora of Java. 3 volumes. Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. 647, 641, 761 pp.
• Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. 2nd Edition. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2444 pp.
• de Wit, H.C.D., 1956. The genus Cassia in Malaysia. Webbia 11: 197-292.
• Flora Malesiana (various editors), 1950-. Series 1. Volume 1, 4-. Kluwer, Dordrecht & Flora Malesiana Foundation, Leiden, the Netherlands.
• Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêt-nam [Flora of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam] (various editors), 1960-. Volume 1-. Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de Phanérogamie, Paris, France.
• Heyne, K., 1950. De nuttige planten van Indonesië [The useful plants of Indonesia]. 3rd Edition. 2 volumes. W. van Hoeve, the Hague, the Netherlands/Bandung, Indonesia. 261, 1450 pp.
• Smitinand, T., Larsen, K. & Hanssen, B. (Editors), 1970-. Flora of Thailand. Volume 2-. Danida, TISTR Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
• Verdcourt, B., 1979. A manual of New Guinea legumes. Botany Bulletin No 11. Office of Forests, Division of Botany, Lae, Papua New Guinea. 645 pp.

Authors

• M.S.M. Sosef & L.J.G. van der Maesen