Cassia fistula is a medium sized deciduous or semi-deciduous tree, 10 to 15 m tall with a straight trunk to 5 m in height and 1 m in diameter. It has spreading branches that form an open crown. The stem bark is pale grey, smooth and slender when young and dark brown and rough when old. The leaves are alternate, spirally arranged, paripinnately compound, 30-40 cm long, each pinnae bearing 3-8 pairs of large, ovate leaflets, 7.5-15 cm long x 2-5 cm broad, entire. The flowers are showy, bright yellow in colour, pentamerous and slightly zygomorphic in shape, 3.5 cm in diameter. They are borne on terminal, drooping racemes about 30-60 cm long which can be grouped by 3. The fruit is a pendulous, cylindrical, indehiscent pod, up to 60-100 cm long x 1.5-2 cm wide. It is black, glabrous and many seeded (25-100 seeds). When the pods are still young, the seeds are embedded in a black pulp. The seeds are ellipsoid, 8-9 mm long, glossy light brown in colour (Orwa et al., 2009; Bosch, 2007). The latin name “cassia” comes from the greek word “kassia” meaning fragrant and aromatic plant (Datiles et al., 2017; Orwa et al., 2009).
