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Cascading spray of Cassia × nealiae with many five-petaled blossoms shaded lemon to salmon pink, each flower showing a curved central column and slender green pedicels
Cassia × nealiae

Bred in Hawai‘i from Asian parents—Cassia fistula (golden shower) and Cassia javanica (apple-blossom cassia)—Cassia × nealiae is a medium, fast-growing ornamental tree generally 20–40 ft tall with a rounded crown, widely planted along streets and in parks throughout Honolulu and other lowland tropical cities; it is also cultivated in frost-free parts of South Florida. The hybrid habit blends the pendant racemes of C. fistula with the fuller branching of C. javanica, producing long, hanging inflorescences that flower in waves during the warm rainy season and again after pruning or brief dry spells. Flowers are the draw: drooping clusters 8–20 in. long carry dozens of bicolored blooms whose petals open pale yellow and blush through apricot and rose as they age, so a single raceme shows multiple hues at once—hence the common name rainbow shower. The hybrid typically sets very little viable seed, trees are therefore propagated vegetatively and maintained as named clones chosen for color intensity, such as pale-apricot, salmon, or pink selections. Photographed in Florida.


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