American Senna

Here's an American Senna (aka Wild Senna), a native plant in the legume family. This is an interesting family of plants. It's the 3rd largest family of land plants behind only the orchids and asters (who are in a close race for 1st place). And while we might be most familiar with them for the beans and peas we eat, they're all around us and in various sizes:

  • Clovers are usually low to the ground wildflowers.
  • Sennas are up to 6 feet in height and straddle that area between wildflowers and shrubs.
  • Kentucky Coffeetrees are trees.

This indicates that there are some trees that are more closely related to the string beans in your garden than they are to other trees like oaks, maples, etc. Trees do not form a clade!

The largish, healthy population of American Senna at Duke Farms is suspected to be the reason that a butterfly rarely seen in the rest of Somerset County - the Sleepy Orange - is commonly found there. They and other sulphur butterflies like the Cloudless Sulphur eat senna in their larval caterpillar stage of life. (Though some butterflies are pickier than others, a lot of times sulphurs will use legumes as their host plants.)

August 15, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 152591822, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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