Senna occidentalis, also known as Usaya ki Fali in Indian vernacular, is a pantropical plant species native to the Americas. It was formerly placed in the Cassia genus and is commonly referred to as septicweed, coffee senna, coffeeweed, piss-a-bed, Mogdad coffee, negro-coffee, senna coffee, Stephanie coffee, stinkingweed, or styptic weed. The plant is reported to be poisonous to cattle due to the presence of emodin, a toxic derivative of anthraquinone, and its seeds contain chrysarobin and N-methylmorpholine. In Hawaii, it is called ʻauʻaukoʻi while in Odisha, India, it is locally known as Bana Chakunda.
Senna occidentalis is an annual undershrub that grows up to a few feet high. Its leaves are alternate, compound, paripinnate, and have a gland at the base of the rachis. The stipules are obliquely cordate and acuminate, while the leaflets are obate to oblong-lanceolate with a ciliate margin and glabrous or pubescence. The inflorescence is an axillary corymb and terminal panicle, and the flowers are complete, bisexual, slightly irregular, zygomorphic, pentamerous, hypogynous, and pedicelate. The calyx has five lobed sepals that are gamosepalous, obtuse, glabrous, imbricate, and odd sepal is anterior. The corolla has five polypetalous petals that are alternisepalous, with distinct claws, conspicuously veined, ascending imbricate, and the posterior petal is the innermost. The androecium has ten stamens, seven of which are perfect and three reduced to staminode, with unequal filaments and anthers that are dithecous, basifixed, introrse, and dehiscing by terminal pores. The gynoecium has a superior ovary that is unilocular, many ovuled, with marginal placentation, a simple style, and a terminate, capitate stigma. The fruit is a pod that is dehiscent, woody, glabrous, recurved, subcompressed, distinctly torulose, and 23-30 seeded.
Arsenic Bean, a super rare houseplant belonging to the Senna genus, is native to Tropical and Subtropical America. It requires regular watering and thrives in long-lasting, direct light, being less than one foot away from a window. The plant prefers well-draining soil.
