CASSIA nodosa Pink and White Shower Tree seeds

A semi deciduous tree that produces new foliage in late spring followed by a heavy crop of rosy-pink flowers in dense clusters. The flowers are followed by long dark-brown cylindrical seed-pods that hang from the crown. Very fast growing.

Native to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Prefers a humus rich soil in a moist soil in a protected sunny position, drought and frost tender.

Although seed can be sown most of the year in many parts of Australia seed is generally best sown in spring or autumn, avoid the coldest and hottest months of the year. The optimum germination temperature for germination is around 18-22°C.

Cassia seeds germinate readily, however they do have a hard outer coating which is impervious to water and generally germination will normally not occur unless the seed is scarified by abrading or pre-treated with boiling water first.

Place the seed in a container and pour in just boiled water and allow to soak overnight.
The swollen seed can then be sown, re-treat seeds that have not swollen.
Sow the depth of seed keep warm & moist but not wet.
Germination should occur in 10-21 days @ 18-22C.
General note: Seeds of many plants are dormant and may require specific conditions or pre-treatment for germination.
Do not be too hasty to discard seed that does not germinate, seeds will often lay dormant until the conditions are similar to their natural requirements for germination to occur. Containers put to one side will often surprise long after they were discarded.

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: