Sensitive Senna, Japanese Tea bush, Five-leaved Cassia
A tropical plant. It grows in upland savannah and bushland. It is often along rivers and ditches. In Ethiopia it grows between 1,000 and 2,800 metres altitude. In Papua New Guinea it grows between 60 and 1800 m altitude. It grows in grassland and can grow in standing water. It grows from sea level to 1,750 m above sea level. It is often in dry sandy soil. It can grow in arid places.
Also known as:
Ajuwajuwa, Amala jhar, Cila-canto-uenrao, Dinding, Fish-bone cassia, Imbubu, Jewer, Jirhul, Kedingding, Makam-bia, Merendim, Merendinlole-faro, Muong trinhnu, Netendim, Sendjoel, Tequeli-toquedi, Umbonisela, Umnyana, Unobothungwana
Synonyms
- Cassia angustissima Lamarck
- Cassia mimosoides L.
- Cassia sensitiva Roxb.
- Cassia dimidiata Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don
- Cassia myriophylla Wallich
- Cassia telfairiana Wallich
- Cassia wallichiana DC.
- Senna sensitiva Roxb.
- Senna tenella Roxb.
Edible Portion
- Leaves - tea, Pods, Leaves, Seeds
Where does Sensitive Senna grow?
Found in: Africa, Angola, Asia, Australia, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Central Africa, China, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, East Africa, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinée, Guinea-Bissau, Himalayas, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pacific, Papua New Guinea, PNG, Philippines, SE Asia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Southern Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam, West Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Notes: There are 100 Cassia species. This group has been revised to a smaller more consistent group. Also as Caesalpinaceae.
Status: It is not known if they are used in Papua New Guinea.
Growing Sensitive Senna, Japanese Tea bush, Five-leaved Cassia
Cultivation: Plants are grown from seed.
Edible Uses: The young leaves are used as tea. The shoots and young leaves are cooked and used as a vegetable. The young tender pods are boiled and eaten. The fully ripe seeds are boiled.
Production: They grow quickly. Plants can be short lived.
Nutrition Info
per 100g edible portion| Edible Part | Energy (kcal) | Protein (g) | Iron (mg) | Vitamin A (ug) | Vitamin c (mg) | Zinc (mg) | % Water |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
References
Burkill, I.H., 1966, A Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula. Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol 1 (A-H) p 483 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Dalziel, 1937 (As Cassia)
Ekka, N. S. & Ekka, A., 2016, Wild Edible plants Used by Tribals of North-east Chhattisgarh (Part-I), India. Research Journal of Recent Sciences. Vol. 5(ISC-2015), 127-131 (2016) (As Cassia)
FAO, 1988, Traditional Food Plants, FAO Food and Nutrition Paper 42. FAO Rome p 158 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Jardin, C., 1970, List of Foods Used In Africa, FAO Nutrition Information Document Series No 2.p 64 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Lazarides, M. & Hince, B., 1993, Handbook of Economic Plants of Australia, CSIRO. p 50 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Luo, B., et al, 2019, Wild edible plants collected by Hani from terraced rice paddy agroecosystem in Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan, China. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 15:56
Martin, F.W. & Ruberte, R.M., 1979, Edible Leaves of the Tropics. Antillian College Press, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. p 107, 198 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Elliot, W.R., & Jones, D.L., 1982, Encyclopedia of Australian Plants suitable for cultivation. Vol 2. Lothian. p 472 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Levitt, D., 1981, Plants and people. Aboriginal uses of plants on Groote Eylandt, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra. p 85 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Manandhar, N.P., 2002, Plants and People of Nepal. Timber Press. Portland, Oregon. p 140 (As Cassia mimosoides)
McMakin, P.D., 2000, Flowering Plants of Thailand. A Field Guide. White Lotus. p 68 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Peekel, P.G., 1984, (Translation E.E.Henty), Flora of the Bismarck Archipelago for Naturalists, Division of Botany, Lae, PNG. p 221, 222 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 122
Pickering, H., & Roe, E., 2009, Wild Flowers of the Victoria Falls Area. Helen Pickering, London. p 72
Pham-Hoang Ho, 1999, An Illustrated Flora of Vietnam. Nha Xuat Ban Tre. p 849 (As Cassia mimosoides)
PROSEA (Plant Resources of South East Asia) handbook, Volume 2, 1991, Edible fruits and nuts.
READ, (As Cassia mimosoides)
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1999). Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL) database. Published on the Internet; http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet [Accessed 21st April 2011]
Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 56
Sp. pl. 1:379. 1753 (As Cassia mimosoides)
Swaziland's Flora Database http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora
van Wyk, Ben-Erik, 2019, The diversity and multiple uses of southern African legumes. Australian Systematic Botany, 2019, 32, 519–546
Verdcourt, B., 1979, Manual of New Guinea Legumes. Botany Bulletin No 11, Division of Botany, Lae, Papua New Guinea. p 50 (As Cassia mimosoides)
World Checklist of Useful Plant Species 2020. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew