Cordofan-pea

Clitoria ternatea, commonly called butterfly pea or cordofan-pea (Sanskrit aparajita), is a slender herbaceous to slightly woody perennial climbing vine in the Fabaceae family reaching about 3 m in length at a fast rate of growth. The plant produces alternate pinnately compound leaves of 5-7 elliptic to obovate obtuse leaflets and bears solitary axillary flowers throughout the warmer months. The flower is its most distinctive feature: a deep blue, papilionaceous bloom 4-5 cm long with a large rounded standard petal marked centrally by a creamy-yellow throat, and a smaller pair of wings and keel; white and pink-flowered cultivars also occur. Cleistogamy and limited cross-pollination produce flat linear legume pods 6-12 cm long containing six to ten seeds. Native to tropical equatorial Asia (Ternate Island, Indonesia), it is now naturalized and cultivated pantropically as an ornamental, food colorant, forage, cover crop, and traditional medicine, fixing atmospheric nitrogen through rhizobial root nodules.