When the golden shower tree blooms, the whole tree turns golden yellow, and its slender fruits look like sausages.

The golden shower tree (Cassia fistula) is a deciduous tree in the legume family, Cassia genus, also known as the golden shower, golden rain, or purging cassia, and it gets its name because its pods are slender, cylindrical, and shaped like sausages. It is native to tropical regions such as South Asia and Southeast Asia, and is commonly cultivated in warm areas of South China and Southwest China. In Thailand it is also honored as the national tree, and it is a highly recognizable tree species in southern landscaping.

The golden shower tree can reach a height of more than ten meters, with lush, spreading pinnate compound leaves. It enters its flowering season in late spring and early summer each year, when strings of golden yellow flowers hang down from the branches and sway gently in the wind, looking from a distance like a golden curtain of rain, which is where the alias golden rain comes from. After flowering, the long pods gradually turn from green to dark brown and hang in clusters on the branches for a long time without falling, giving a fairly long ornamental period.

In terms of use, the golden shower tree has a broad canopy and is excellent in both flowers and fruit, making it suitable as a street tree or shade tree, and it can also be planted in parks and courtyards as a landscape accent. During peak bloom it often makes people stop to admire it. It should be noted that although its fruit pulp is traditionally said to soothe the intestines, parts such as the seeds are irritating, so when growing it at home for ornamental purposes, do not eat it casually.

For care, the golden shower tree prefers a sunny, warm, and humid environment. It is heat-tolerant and relatively drought-tolerant, but not cold-tolerant. In areas with low winter temperatures, it is difficult to overwinter outdoors, so it is better suited to southern regions. It is not demanding about soil, with loose, fertile, well-drained sandy loam being best. It is mostly propagated by sowing, and during the seedling stage attention should be paid to maintaining a water supply; once mature, management is relatively rough and simple.