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Colutea

Genus of legumes

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
2 min read
Source updated August 17, 2025
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Colutea is a genus of about 28 species of deciduous flowering shrubs in the legume family, Fabaceae, growing from 2-5 metres (6+1⁄2, 16+1⁄2 ft) tall and native to the Old World. They are sometimes called bladder sennas, although they are not particularly closely related to the true sennas.

01Description

The leaves are pinnate and light green to glaucous grey-green. The flowers are yellow to orange, pea-shaped and produced in racemes throughout the summer. These are followed by the attractive inflated seed pods which change from pale green to red or copper in colour.

02Species

As of April 2023, Plants of the World Online accepted the following species:

03Distribution and habitat

The genus is native to southern Europe, north Africa and southwest Asia.

04Ecology

Colutea species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Coleophora colutella.

05Cultivation

Colutea arborescens, is in general cultivation in the UK. It was imported early, before 1568, probably for medicinal purposes, but now is grown mostly for its attractive seed pods, used in dried arrangements. Though in Virginia Thomas Jefferson had it and it appears in Lady Jean Skipwith's lists of plants, in US gardens, it is little more than a marginal curiosity.

Colutea arborescens will grow in poor sandy soils in preference to heavy or loamy soils. It has become naturalised in the UK, where it established itself in the sharp drainage of railway embankments. It is easy to propagate from seed. It is generally pest resistant, though garden snails will climb up the plant in wet weather to eat the leaves. The hybrid Colutea × media (C. arborescens × C. orientalis) is also cultivated for its coppery flowers.

06Uses

The Bedouins of the Sinai and Negev would, in times of scarcity, eat the seeds of C. istria.

Watch videos about ColuteaExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Colutea”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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