Mimosa Scabrella, also called Mimosa Bracatinga or Sensitive Plant is a member of the Mimosoideae subfamily of legumes. This plant is native to the cool subtropical plateaus of Southeastern Brazil. Mimosa Scabrella or Shame tree is a small tree regarded as a useful living fence post or ornamental avenue tree. It is also useful for reforestation and as a bonus it sheds copious leaves forming good humus. This is a fast growing tree that can attain 15 m tall in 3 years, 8?9 m in 2 years, and 5 m in 14 months, with sparse broad crown. The whitish, almost smooth trunk branches shortly above the base and the young branchlets are lepidote (scaly). The leaves are pinnate, compound and small, with axis 3-11 cm long and 3-9 pairs of pinnae, 2-7 cm long, larger on vigorous twigs. The leaflets are made of 15-35 pairs on each side of the axis, narrowly oblong, tiny, 2-5 mm long, blunt, densely covered with fine, star-shaped hairs, with the upper surface yellow-green, paler underneath. This plant has charming little flowers that bloom in little purple puffs. Produces flower clusters on short racemes, 1-3 at leaf bases or several along short axis, consisting of heads or balls, rounded or elliptical, 7-10 mm in diameter. There are many flowers, and they are small, whitish, 5-7 mm long, composed or tubular, hairless with a 1 mm long calyx, united into a tube near the base, and the pistil have narrow ovary and slender style. There are several pods in a cluster and they are narrowly oblong, flattened, 2-4 together, 5-9 mm long, covered with tiny warts, and they separate into 2-4 joints or segments, containing 4-angled and 1-seeded, each splitting open later on. There are only a few seeds, and they are beanlike, egg-shaped, flattened, 3-6 mm long, and brown. Hardiness Zones : 9-11 (-5c/25f, 4c/40f). The Mimosa Scabrella prefers free-draining soil. It tolerates strongly acid soils with pH as low as 4.8 and those with high aluminum content but it does not tolerate waterlogged, compacted or severely degraded soils.