Senna

Senna is a large genus of the legume family, Fabaceae: somewhere between 260 and 350 species of shrubs, small trees and perennial herbs, native throughout the tropics with a few in temperate regions. Their leaves are divided into paired leaflets, their flowers usually have five yellow petals, and their fruit is a leathery pod holding several seeds. The name comes from the Arabic sanā, given to plants whose leaves and pods purge the bowels, and the type species, Senna alexandrina, known as Alexandrian or Indian senna, is the one long sold as a laxative. Arab physicians brought it into European medicine in the ninth or tenth century. Grieve describes the leaves being cut in Nubia, dried on sun-baked rocks and sent by camel and down the Nile to Cairo, and notes that it was grown in England by about 1640. It is still a common stimulant laxative and the working part of syrup of figs, while other species give cassia gum and the leaves and flowers cooked in Thai curries. In Arab tradition senna was used to lift illness caused by sorcery, the evil eye or possession by jinn, and in India to foster cooperation and in love sachets. Cunningham gives it to Mercury and air for love spells; Kynes adds earth, Taurus, Virgo, the Moon, Saturn and the Sun, and uses it for love, fidelity and protection.