San Marcos Growers LogoSan Marcos Growers
Home Products Purchase Gardens About Us Resources Contact Us
Nursery Closure
Search Utilities
Plant Database
Search Plant Name
Detail Search Avanced Search Go Button
Search by size, origins,
details, cultural needs
Website Search Search Website GO button
Search for any word
Site Map
Retail Locator
Plant Listings

PLANT TYPE
PLANT GEOGRAPHY
PLANT INDEX
ALL PLANT LIST
PLANT IMAGE INDEX
PLANT INTROS
SPECIALTY CROPS
NEW  2026 PLANTS

LIVE AVAILABILITY
  for JULY


Natives at San Marcos Growers
Succulents at San Marcos Growers
 Weather Station

 
Products > Senna phyllodinea
 
Senna phyllodinea - Silver Leaf Cassia

Note: This plant is no longer in stock. This is an archive page preserved for informational use.  
Image of Senna phyllodinea
[2nd Image]
Habit and Cultural Information
Category: Shrub
Family: Fabaceae = Pea Family
Origin: Australia (Australasia)
Evergreen: Yes
Flower Color: Yellow
Bloomtime: Winter/Spring
Synonyms: [Cassia phyllodinea, C. phyllodine]
Height: 4-6 feet
Width: 4-5 feet
Exposure: Full Sun
Summer Dry: Yes
Deer Tolerant: Yes
Irrigation (H2O Info): Low Water Needs
Winter Hardiness: 15-20° F
Senna phyllodinea (Silver Leaf Cassia) - A fast growing evergreen medium size shrub to 5 to 6 feet tall and wide with limber branches holding distinctive flattened 2 to 3 inch long silver-gray falcate (sickle-shaped) leaves that are often two lobed near the tip and shimmer with light in the sun. Showy 3/4-inch-wide yellow flowers appear in mass on branched terminal cluster in mid to late winter to early spring with interment flowering on to fall are followed by dangling papery brown seedpods that persist for months on the plant.

Plant in full sun and well-drained soils. Irrigate only occasionally to infrequently as overwatering makes plants leggy. Hardy to around 20° F and useful in USDA Zone 9 and above. It is drought tolerant and handles wind, high heat and reflected heat exposures. It is a great showy and adaptable plant for a hot dry location that is attractive in or out of flower and the flowers are attractive to bees and butterflies.

Senna phyllodinea is native to dry inland plains on rocky soils, often in large colonies, in Queensland, New South Wales South Australia and New Territories. This species was long been included with the genus Cassia that Linnaeus authored in 1753 but was more closely allied with the plants in the genus Senna, a genus described by Phillip Miller only a year later; most recent treatment has moved it to Senna but Cassia and Senna are a monophyletic group (a clade) and further work on them may just as well combine them again in the future. The name for the genus comes from Arabic 'san' or 'sany' that was used for a thorn-bush and a herbal used by the Arabian physicians. The specific epithet means leaves without pinnae in reference to the leaves being reduced to a flattened enlarged petiole, called a phyllode. It is also commonly called Silver Cassia or Silvery Cassia. It is somewhat similar and confused in the nursery trade with the more common Senna artemisioides

Information displayed on this page about Senna phyllodinea is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.

 
San Marcos Growers closed for regular business at the end of 2025 as the property is being developed for affordable housing.
While our gates remain closed, we will open them by appointment so we can liquidate remaining plants, supplies and equipment. The plants remaining in the field are listed on our Live Inventory Page.