Cassia Bicapsularis

This species was the first Cassia I ever knew about. While renting a house, I discovered 'something' growing outside in a 5 gallon plastic bucket (I use growing lightly, because it had no drainage and almost no dirt and was neglected.). Having a bit of room inside the lanai, I planted it in a landscape area next to the pool. One of our parrots, Festus, liked sitting in the tree/bush because it had several horizontal branches and she could hop around. When spring came, the bush grew like crazy - but being in a lanai, there were no butterflies (and no caterpillars)... And interestingly enough, no blooms were on this specimen that year! The "Festus Tree" as it became know as grew and grew and grew - to the top of the screen. The more I cut it, the more it grew. Not really knowing what I was doing, I successfully "root toned" many clippings and started new plants. In a heavy rain and wind, it uprooted itself - a story another local told me happened to theirs as well. I figure it just doesn't root that deep and gets too top heavy when wet.

One day I was at a nursery and saw a row of seed-grown 6ft specimens and inquired - thus finding out what it was and a few details. Seed pod? Never had seen one! No blooms either.

We moved on November 1 into a temp house and one of the potted 4-5ft clippings which had been outside threw a few blooms. Pretty, we thought! You could see the yellow 100 yards away. They were banged around a bit and kept in pots - we moved them to our new house by Dec 15 and these stayed in the garage for a month or so. I moved them outside in the pots and watered them and they had almost full sun. Didn't grow much at all (this is Jan/Feb) but rooted into the ground thru the plastics pots. I kept telling my new neighbor that these were a cool plant and I was going to do something with them someday... when I figured out where I wanted them. That took 5 months and finally I planted them and luckily took some pics early on. Its amazing to see the growth of these plants.

About Butterflies: I truly believe that the natural pruning effect the caterpillars have on the plant is beneficial. Yes, they munch on the leaves and you want to protect your leaves, but I really think thats what God planned and I really saw this plant take off and grow like crazy once it was happy and was fulfilling its purpose as a butterfly host plant. (more)

Another friend (Tammy) has at least 5 big ones growing. They are only 3 years old.