Clitoria ternatea

What to Eat

Edible parts: Leaves, Pods, Flowers - tea, Flowers

The young pods are eaten as a vegetable. The flowers are used to give a blue tinge to rice cakes and boiled rice, and the leaves can also be used to colour food. Young leaves are cooked and used as a vegetable. This plant is noted as a protein staple crop in carbon farming contexts.

Where to Find It

It is a tropical plant. It will grow on most soils. It needs a sheltered sunny position. It is drought and frost tender. Mostly they grow on the edge of forests. It grows where the minimum temperature is 16°C. In Nepal it grows to about 250 m altitude in hedges and thickets. It can grow in arid places. In XTBG Yunnan. It suits hardiness zones 10-12.

Africa, Angola, Antigua-Barbuda, Aruba, Asia, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabinda, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Caribbean, Cayman Islands, Central Africa, Central America, Chad, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, East Africa, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Europe, Fiji, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Guadeloupe, Guianas, Guam, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinée, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Hawaii, Himalayas, Honduras, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marianas, Marquesas, Martinique, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Middle East, Montserrat, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North America, Niue, Pacific, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, PNG, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Reunion, Sahel, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, SE Asia, Seychelles, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Southern Africa, South America, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Africa, West Indies, West Timor, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe,

How to Identify

A perennial herb plant. It grows to 3-4.5 m tall and spreads to 4 m wide. The stem is slender and twines. The leaves are green and divided. They are 6-12 cm long. The 5-9 leaflets are oval. The flowers are bright purple. They are pea like and 3-5 cm across. They have yellow tinted white centres. The flowers occur either singly or in pairs. The fruit are flat pods. They are 7 cm long. After the seeds fall the pods twist. The seeds are dark brown to black.

Nutrition Score: 33/100

How to Grow

It is also grown as an annual in warm temperate areas. It grows best in areas with an annual rainfall in the region of 1,500mm, but it has a reputation for drought tolerance in the seasonally dry tropics (with 500 - 900 mm annual rainfall) and can probably survive with as little as 400mm annual rainfall. Its annual mean temperature range is 19 - 28°c and it has survived moderate frost damage in the subtropics (at a latitude of 26°S). Plants can succeed on a variety of soils as long as they are well-drained, but prefer a fertile, friable soil, growing poorly on infertile sandy soils if they not fertilized. It does well on heavy clay soils. Prefers a position in full sun. It succeeds within a pH range of 5.5 - 8.9. Butterfly pea is one of the few herbaceous legumes well adapted to heavy clay soils in the subhumid to semi-arid tropics and the only one with potential in irrigated pasture mixtures on these soils. Early growth of the plant from seed is rapid in warm moist conditions. Growth of established plants is mostly from the apices of the main axis and axillary branches; very few new shoots arise from ground level. Growth is more or less continuous in the humid tropics, or with irrigation in other hot regions. Individual plants may live for several years and grow into large vines if undisturbed. In the seasonally dry tropics and in cool regions, growth is limited by lack of moisture or low temperatures. Leaves are shed in response to these stresses and top growth may be killed by frost or fire. However, recovery during the following growing season is usually good Butterfly pea competes fairly well with weeds once established and can cover the ground in 4 - 6 weeks when sown at a population of 4 plants per square metre. Establishment may be a problem on fertile soils if sown with a vigorous companion grass or oversown into an existing pasture. It combines better with tussock than stoloniferous grasses in mixed pastures. The location of its growing points at the ends of the main branches makes it susceptible to frequent low cutting as well as to continuous heavy grazing. Flowers are cleistogamous but a small level of outcrossing occurs. Time to flowering can range from 7 - 11 weeks. Subsequent flowering flushes overlap pod maturation from the previous flush, and they continue throughout the year in frost-free regions. At higher latitudes in the tropics, there is usually a peak at the end of the wet season and again at the end of the cool season, if moisture is available. Pods mature in 8 - 10 weeks after flowering and shatter readily once fully dry. There is considerable variation in the size of flowers and leaflets. The plant is propagated by seed and readily self- propagates and spreads under favourable conditions by seed thrown vigorously from the dehiscing dry pods. Seed is also spread in cattle dung.Inoculation of butterfly pea seed with rhizobia is not usually necessary; but, if it is required, broad spectrum cowpea inoculum should be used. This species has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria, these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby. Climate: tropical. Humidity: semi-arid to humid. Carbon Farming - Cultivation: minor global crop. Management: hay.

Propagation: Seed — hand-harvested seed tends to remain hard for a long time and requires scarification before sowing. Dormancy can be broken by mechanical abrasion, hot water, or sulphuric acid treatment. Seed is normally sown from the beginning to the middle of the wet season at rates of 3–5 kg/ha (or 1 kg/ha under ideal conditions) in well-prepared seedbeds, placed 1.5–4 cm deep and lightly covered. Rates of 5–8 kg/ha may be needed when sowing into rough conditions. Germination is epigeal; the radicle emerges within 48–72 hours and seedlings appear within 3–6 days depending on planting depth.

Medicinal Uses

In traditional Ayurvedic medicine the plant is credited with memory-enhancing, nootropic, antistress, anxiolytic, antidepressant, anticonvulsant, tranquilizing, and sedative properties. Traditional Chinese medicine attributes effects on female libido to the plant, based on its resemblance to the female reproductive organ. The flowers are mixed with water and used to treat eye problems. The powdered ripe seeds are aperient and purgative. The roots are bitter, powerfully cathartic, diuretic, and purgative. The rootbark is diuretic and laxative. The plant is also used in the treatment of snakebites. The seeds contain a fixed oil, a bitter resinous compound, and tannins; the rootbark contains tannins.

Other Uses

Butterfly pea has a reputation as a potential fodder plant, hay crop, or cover crop, and has been extensively tested as such, particularly in subhumid to semi-arid tropical regions. It is used by smallholders as a cover crop in coconut plantations in southern India and in rubber plantations in Malaysia, providing good ground cover due to its fast growth. The leaves and flowers can be used as a dye. The seeds and bark are a source of tannins. In agroforestry, it serves as a nitrogen-fixing species.

Clitoria ternatea, commonly known as Shankhupushpam (conch-shaped flower), Asian pigeonwings, bluebellvine, blue pea, butterfly pea, cordofan pea, or Darwin pea, is a plant species belonging to the family Fabaceae and native to the Indonesian island of Ternate. In Indian Ayurveda it is commonly known by the name aparajita.

Notes

It becomes a weed in many places forming tangled hedges. There are about 40 Clitoria species. In the Botanical Gardens in Slovenia - presumably in a hot house.

More from Fabaceae

Abrus cantoniensis

Abrus precatorius

Bird's eye, Indian liquorice

Abrus precatorius subsp. africanus

Abrus pulchellus

Malay licorice

Acacia abyssinica

Flat-top acacia

Acacia acatlensis

Chondata