Senna armata
San Bernardino Co., CA
April 2003

Senna durangensis
Brewster Co., TX
Spjut & Marin15045, Nov 2002

Senna armata

Kern Co., CA
Hwy 14 between California City
and  Mojave. Atriplex-Grayia-Senna scrub.
24 April 2013

Senna lindheimeriana
Brewster Co., TX
Spjut & Marin15075, Nov 2002

Senna lindheimeriana
Brewster Co., Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, TX , Nov 2007

Trees and Shrubs of Kern County (Jan 2013)

     Senna. Perennial herbs, shrubs or trees; leaves deciduous, alternate, even pinnate; flowers on terminal simple or branched scapes, usually with yellow showy unequal 4–5 petals; anthers opening by terminal pores; fruit bean-like, indehiscent or dehiscent. ± 300 species, seasonal dry tropical and subtropical regions extending to the deserts, 1 in Kern County.

Senna armata (Cassia armata S. Watson 1876) H.S. Irwin & Barneby 1982. Desert senna. Mostly leafless shrub with erect striated stems that terminate in a weak spine; stems green drying pale to orange brown; leaves soon deciduous after new season growth, divided in 2–4  even pairs; leaflets kidney-shaped, <2×  longer than wide; flowering Apr–May, flowers yellow in racemes 5–15 cm long, the petals veiny.  Mojave and Sonoran Deserts below 3700 ft, western Nevada, Arizona, California south to the Sierra San Pedro Mártir in Baja California. Type from western AZ.  Kern Co.: Locally common in creosote scrub, from Mojave to Randsburg, El Paso Mts., Ridgecrest, east end of Pine Tree Canyon, 640–1,067 m (CCH).