Golden Shower (Cassia fistula L.)

Botanical Description

Golden Shower (Cassia fistula) is a deciduous tree introduced from the Indian sub-continent. It has smooth pinnate leaves with ovate leaflets but most distinctly pendulous bright yellow flowers ranging around 30 to 50 cm in length. Its fruit is a long cylinder-shaped pod that turns black and splits open once it matures, the pulp surrounding the seed is yellow when unripe but turns into a black-brown pulp at maturity.

Uses

  • Edible flowers and fruits.

  • Its various parts have laxative, emetic, abortifacient, and febrifugal properties.

  • Used in traditional medicine to treat malaria, heart disease, sepsis, dysentery, and various skin diseases just to name a few.