I went back to work on Christmas Eve and noticed the Cassia mimosoides that I planted at end Oct 09 beside the Pasir Panjang Road entrance to HortPark was in bloom.
I only learnt about this butterfly host plant when I visited the Punggol fields in early 2009 with our Butterfly Garden adviser and my colleague, who collected the seeds from the numerous brown pods and germinated them in our nursery.
We were told that this plant was not easy to grow but my colleague did it again! In fact, we noticed that this plant, after attaining a certain size about 1.2 -1.5 m, would die back, much like some of the Crotalaria plants.
It is a host plant to some of the pierids, whose green long caterpillars camouflage very well amongst the fine leaves of this plant. The plant may not be very showy but it does have small yellow flowers that bloom frequently.
