Senna italica Mill.

Perennial herb with several prostrate to decumbent, branched stems up to 40 cm high, or a sub-shrub, more erect and up to 60 cm high (unusual in Flora area), from a woody rootstock with long, thick roots. Stems when young slightly flattened, ± glandular and viscid to eglandular, minutely pubescent with short thick patent hairs becoming glabrescent with age, or appearing glabrous but with densely packed, microscopic, straight or curved hairs, or appressed pubescent with fine straight hairs lying parallel with surface, or densely pilose with long, slender patent hairs, becoming ± terete (sometimes with 1 or more marked furrows), non viscid, glabrescent, glabrous or remaining densely pilose with age. Leaves variable in size: petiole and rhachis (2-)4-10(-12) cm long; stipules persistent, asymmetric, hastate or ovate-triangular, 3.5-8(-11) mm long, 2-2.5 mm wide, with a well-marked mid-vein, glabrescent with short patent hairs especially on margins; petiole 0.3-3.5 cm long including basal pulvinus, petiole and rhachis eglandular (except for numerous small finger-like glands in the leaf axils and adaxially on the rhachis between each pair of leaflets); leaflets in (3-)4-6(-9) pairs, oblong, obovate-oblong or obovate-elliptic, 1-3.8 (-4.3) cm long, (0.4-)1-2.5(-2.7) cm wide, uppermost pair not always largest, bases asymmetric, apices emarginate, rounded or obtuse, sometimes mucronate, margins orange with short, scattered hairs, surfaces minutely glandular or eglandular, glabrous, glabrescent, pubescent or densely villous with hairs varying from minute and straight or curved or appressed to long and patent. Inflorescences axillary racemes, including naked peduncles, 2-15(-25) cm long, many-flowered; bracts 3-5.5 mm long, 3-5 mm wide, ovate, acuminate, deciduous ± at flower opening; pedicels, at flowering, ±3 mm long, not much elongated at fruiting. Sepals obtuse. Petals sub-equal, obovate, (5-)7-12(-20) mm long, (2.7-)5-7(-10) mm wide, bright yellow to yellowish-white becoming brown-veined with age. Stamens 10:3 adaxial reduced, ± staminodal with ± flattened filaments, 4 lateral and 1 central-abaxial medium-sized, 2-3.3 mm long, 2 lateral-abaxial large, 5-8 mm long, curved, dehiscence porose. Ovaries glabrous or white pubescent with minute straight, curved, or appressed hairs, or densely pilose with long patent hairs; style 3-7 mm long, bent at 70°-90° to ovary, or ± coiled; stigma either hardly wider than width of style narrowing apically into a small ± circular to elliptic aperture, or flared into an asymmetric trumpet markedly wider than style. Pods flattened, rather variable in size and shape, generally ± oblong to sub-orbicular, often slightly upwardly falcate 2-4(-6) cm long, 1.3-2.5 cm wide, apex beaked, valves membranous, evidently veined, brown, with a median line of crests (lacking in some plants from eastern Transvaal and Natal), glabrous or minutely pubescent or villous. Seeds laterally compressed, ± ovate, 6-7 mm long, ±4 mm wide, testa brown, reticulate-rugose; areole central on each lateral face, oblong, faintly transversely-striate, ±2 mm long, ±0.5 mm wide.

It is a subtropical plant. It grows in hot, arid places with a marked dry season. It can have a dry season of 6-11 months and can grow in warm temperate humid locations. It grows in areas with an rainfall below 500 mm. It can grow in acid and salty soils. They can be stony or sandy. It grows between 50-1,830 m above sea level. It can grow in arid places.

The young seeds are cooked and eaten. They are also used as a coffee substitute. The seeds are sometimes used as food. They are also added to beer.

Can be grown by seedlings. Seeds needs soaking.