PlantFiles: Rainbow Shower Tree
Cassia x nealiae

This is the most attractive tree I've ever seen. A local nursery (9B) has a 6 year old specimen that is about 30 feet tall. They report extremely long bloom periods of about 5 months.

The notes for this tree have it blooming spring. early summer, but in St. Petersburg, Fl this tree is a long and late bloomer reaching peak in august and continuing through October. Blooms do start as early as May.

2008--Exciting update. We experienced a freeze here in December with reports of temperatures as low as 26. I went and checked on my favorite cassia at the nursery--not a single leaf had fallen and the tree showed no damage at all in with temps in the high 20s.

July--2009. After 2 years of searching, i finally found one of these for sale. As a 6 foot rooted branch with a base nearly dime-sized, it survived a warm winter with Christmas tree lights for protection. it was very late putting out new leaves and branches, waiting until may. It shed the majority of old small limbs, which is natural. The tree is constantly covered in small ants and attracts an unidentified green fly, but is growing again in its second summer. I am battling to keep a single leader on this tree as it wants to spread wide. I have it staked to 8 feet, but i expect it to begin to spread from here.

I live east of Sarasota, this year the temp was about 25degrees and my cassia roxburghii is blooming right now in July.. It is beautiful and weeping in colors of yellow, orange, red, like a rainbow...kathy crowley

Quite a few, still quite young, planted lining both sides of a couple of block-long sections of Kamehameha Ave. in Hilo. I can just imagine how beautiful they will be when all in bloom as they get larger.

this is my all-time favorite tree. As a young child our neighbor had a tree and my sister and I would take turns standing under a branch while the other shook it to make the petals rain down. The neighbor gave my mother a rooted cutting that made a lovely shade tree in a corner of her yard. Last year I removed a kukui that was much to large for my property and within a week planted my own "rainbow". Only a spindley 6' when planted, the branches have grown 3'-4' in 7 mos. Unfortunately it did not bloom this year (I HOPE it's a rainbow!). The rainbow shower tree is a hybrid originally produced in Hawaii from the javanica (pink & white) and fistula (golden).