Plant · P-099

Wild Senna

Senna marilandica

Maryland Senna is grown for its extrafloral nectaries and long bloom, which feed ladybird beetles, ants, flies and bumble bees well outside the flowering window - the shrub-layer equivalent of Partridge Pea's insect-support role, at roughly four times the height. Despite being a legume, it does not fix nitrogen - nodulation is absent across the genus - and its cathartic sennoside chemistry means foliage and pods should never be grazed or fed as forage.