Flor de conchitas

Centrosema pubescens, the centro bean or butterfly pea, is a perennial herbaceous to slightly woody twining vine in the Fabaceae native to lowland tropical and subtropical Central and South America, from southern Mexico through the Amazon basin, and very widely cultivated and naturalized throughout the wet tropics as a forage legume and cover crop. The slender, finely pubescent stems trail or climb to 2 to 5 metres. The alternate leaves are trifoliolate, with ovate to elliptic leaflets 3 to 7 cm long, softly hairy beneath, and small linear stipules. Showy resupinate papilionaceous flowers 2.5 to 4 cm across, with a broad, pale violet to lilac standard petal marked with a darker central blotch and pale veins, are borne in axillary racemes of two to six flowers; the standard is held lowermost because of the resupinate inversion, giving the genus its characteristic appearance. The fruit is a flat, linear, finely beaked pod 7 to 17 cm long containing dark mottled seeds, dehiscing explosively at maturity.