Roger's Tree Pick for August: golden medallion

Once again I bring to you another great small tree that is well suited to various areas for your garden and her name is cassia. Cassia leptophylla (pronounced “KASS-ee-uh lep-toe-FILL-uh”), also known as golden medallion, is considered a small tree, reaching a height of about 20 to 25 feet and about 20 feet across in the canopy.

It is taxonomically placed into the Leguminosae family, which is huge and part of the pea clan, which brings on a shower of bright golden flower spikes to wrap up the dog days of summer, usually with a blooming window of three months.

This species of cassia is an inhabitant of disturbed forests and woodland margins of southeastern Brazil. The cassia clan has about 30 or so species, many of which contain pharmaceutical properties while others are highly attractive to insects, especially butterflies, which are lured by the bright yellow flower spikes.

Cassia is the Greek name for the plants that provide senna leaves and pods used in medical research. The species leptophylla means thin-leaved, which are very delicate upon close inspection.

This gold medallion tree is fast growing and almost evergreen (depending on your plant zone) and is another of my picks for a small yard needing that extra punch with showers of yellow flowers.

With its lacy and almost fern-like foliage and vibrant flowers it has a somewhat tropical appearance and can be used as that special key focal point in a landscape setting. It is often trained to a single trunk and used as a street tree but is also effective as a lawn tree or as a background tree in the right setting and enjoys excellent soil drainage.

This species is perhaps one of the most shapely and graceful of the cassias in California. Like all other cassias, it grows quickly to its mature height and is fairly drought-tolerant once established.

One unique and real conversation item about this tree is its very dramatic and striking seedpods. When the flowers become pollinated they produce very long and elegant green (almost cucumber-like) pods that hang down from within the canopy of the tree.

I, who collects seedpods, have a bowl of unique tree seedpods in my studio as a centerpiece on a table. Start a collection yourself when you see some pods on a tree or a shrub and you’ll be amazed at the variation, textures and colors that exist out in the pod world. Some real easy ones to find are: jacaranda, magnolia, banksia, pinecones, liquidambar and many others.

This way you can even grow some of these seeds and start your own botanical collection of unique and unusually trees.

Many cassias are attractive shrubs as well and most of them can be used in a xeriscape landscape. So if you plan your garden in stages, you can have some type of cassia in bloom most of the year. These are a few of the other cassias to look for out in the nursery trade: cassia artemisoides, C. corymbosa, C. biflora, C. bicapularis.

I consider cassia a real winner on my “Tree Hit Parade” for its multiple qualities of appearance, care, color and overall structure that fits into many settings and themes for a garden’s personality.

These trees are available at Santa Margarita Growers here in Fallbrook.

Roger Boddaert, the “Tree Man of Fallbrook,” is a certified ISA arborist and a professional landscape designer. He can be reached at (760) 728-4297.

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