PlantFiles: Candle Bush, Empress Candle Plant, Candletree, Candelabra Bush, Ringworm Tree
Senna alata

Can be propagated via softwood/hardwood cuttings. Roots and grows amazingly fast. 6" cutting from local plant swap is now 6.5ft tall by 7ft spread, very well branched, all in just 2 months. Has become one of my all time favorites. Just need to see how cold hardy she will be in Zone 9B.

I love this beautiful plant--my mother had one. I need plants for cut flowers for the tables in out healthy food cafe. Do these flowers last at least 2 days when cut?

This is used as a background scrub in the butterfly garden at the Palm Coast Public Library. Such a dramatic plant.

Host plant for Cloudless Sulpher butterflies & thus Cats; hummingibrds also love it. Bees and wasps/hornets are attracted to it. It can be a bit messy w/ multifple petals falling & multiple seed pods. You can cut it back or prune as necessary and this tree continues to thrive and bloom all season long.

I grew this in Ft. Worth, Texas as well as down here in Holiday Beach, Tx. I have found in the past and present that if the temperature is going down to freezing or cold enough to kill the Candle Bush, I will immediately cut it down and heavily mulch for the winter; of course making sure it is damp after mulching. Much success with it regrowing when the warmth of Spring comes around. In South Texas, I have noticed that the Cut Ants love to devour it over night where you have nothing left except sticks. Though, it will regrow once it is through pouting. Wonderful border bush at fences that creates privacy.

I love my cassia alata. Grows great every year and now has a trunk like a small tree. Will brown if hit by frost but comes right back.
No problems with volunteer seedlings if you remove the pods before splitting open. Very attractive to butterflies. Also attracts fire ants but better on the plant than all over the yard. I grow it away from the house.

zone 10 --- Cypress Creek : Florida

Grows very well in tropical southeast Florida
Can be invasive from volunteer seedlings.
just pluck the seedlings from ground and throw away or plant

very easy to grow.
butterflies, birds love this plant.

Summer I group of 3 for hurricane protection, in the front yard... also for its flowering accent and tropical look.
Since it grows so well and fast.

NOTE: during the legendary 4 hurricane season hit we had in 2004. It was this plant that took the brunt of the wind an
debri and the house was saved. the plant looked shredded like shredded papers..but after pruning out the wind burnt leaves it grew back and flowered immediately.

Most folks only know it looks nice and do not ask about it when I replace it in the bedding with bright fresh planting of impatiens.

Winter --- I throw it away.

I keep a hedge in back yard (all year long ) so I can plant more when i want to. I collect fresh seeds all the time so I do not run low or out... ya neva kno.....????

I keep a hedge in a corner where it is prunned to be 8-10 feet tall, looks nice and green all year,

NOTE: it slows down and hates the cold, if close to 30 --water soil to keep roots well watered and insulated..... I make sure i keep my hedge well watered in cold temps under or clsoe to 30, because i have read it will die at freezing.

it grows that easy here.

its better than ficus and cheaper.. and not less invasive if you know what you are doing....

makes a nice container hedge row as well.. try it, you'll see.

I HAD GOOD SUCCESS WITH THIS PLANT THIS SUMMER AND FALL (ZONE 10).

Synonym: herpetic alata.
Common name: fleur palmiste, fleur dartre, candlestick senna, wild senna, ringworm cassia, guajava, ketepeng badak, flor del Secreto, Tarantana, candle bush, akapulko, man-slabriki, akapulco, gelenggang.
Family: caesalpinaceae (caesalpinia family).



This plant, a 6 - 25 feet tall, perennial shrub, has erect waxy yellow spikes that resemble fat candles before the individual blossoms open.
The large leaves are bilateral - symetrical opposed and fold together at night.
The fruit is a pod, while the seeds are small and square.
Wild senna is indigenous to Suriname and it is found in secondary vegetation or along riverbanks or moist and even wet spots.
It is also a host plant to many species of sulphur caterpillars, included the orange barred sulphure.
Guajava is a fast grower and will flower in the first year.
The leaves have laxative properties and can be effective as such.
Ringworm cassia also has antimicrobial - and antifungus activity and can be used against dermatophyte infections such as tidea pedis (athlete's foot).

Pharmacology: contains the phytochemicals antraquinone compound
(e.g. dianthrone qlycosides) and flavonoids.

In Suriname's traditional medicine, the leaves of this plant are used in the treatment of ringworm, the seeds as an anthelmintic while the roots can be used against uterus disorders. The crushed leaves are used for skin infections.

This plant grows very well here. If you cut the seed pods off when the dry, you will have a second smaller bloom. I cut several limbs on put them in water trying to save the yellow sulfer caterpillars from the lizards. It has remained green and growing in a jar of water for 3 weeks. Beautiful addition to the landscape especially when paired with the blue Philipine violet.

I found this plant growing on a genuine "restinga" environment - near the sea, on white sand, under full sun and regular rains. It seems a quite though plant to me.

It is part a creeping woody plant, part an erect shrub that doesn´t get very tall. The flower spikes are great, with round yellow flowers, and floral buds protected by bright yellow bracts. Bumblebees like them, specially.

I live in Dallas, Texas (U.S.), and had two Candle Trees on either side of an arbor. They did nicely and even bloomed for me. But when winter came they died and did not return. Two years later, I've noticed seedlings all over the place; I have planted several in pots to see if these are the Candle Crees or just some weed. They have the nice fronds and look very delicate.

This plant is a very fast grower--I bought it in a 1 gal. pot at about 3 feet tall. It grew to about 5 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide the first year. It froze back to the ground in the winter. I cut the branches all back to the ground this spring and it resprouted very nicely. This year (yr. 2) it is already almost double the size it was last year--it's around 10 feet tall and about 8 feet wide.

The blooms are clear, bright yellow spikes. It's a sulphur caterpillar larval food plant, which is why I planted it. I have watched sulphur butterflies lay eggs on the plant, but with all the ants on it (mainly carpenter ants), the cats never seem to make it. All the ants would be the only negative I have seen about it at this point. Supposedly it self-seeds readily, but I have not had a problem at all with that. I tried to remove seed pods as they developed last year. It's going to be harder to do that this year due to the height.

Fast grower; dies back after frost and the entire plant turns black, but it grows back in spring.

Attracts fire ants - so be careful when cutting blooms, tranplanting, etc.

Native to Hawaii

This attractive shrub is named for its flower buds which grow in a column and look like fat yellow candles each complete with a flame! Can be grown as a cultivated shrub or small tree to 25 feet tall.

It's evergreen, with compound leaves that are up to 3 feet long and have 20 leaflets. The leaves fold together at night. Blooms are erect spikes of waxy, golden flowers. The flowers are buds covered with orange bracts which fall off when the flower opens.

The fruit is a black pod with two broad wings; seeds are small, square and they rattle in the pod when ripe. A host plant to many species of sulphur caterpillars.