Centrosema brasilianum(L.) Benth.

WFO wfo-0000174032 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Breno Figueiredo
fig. a Breno Figueiredo, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-16 / obs. 148929779
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Breno Figueiredo
fig. b Breno Figueiredo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 142883222
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Breno Figueiredo
fig. c Breno Figueiredo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 142881521
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Helio Lourencini
fig. d Helio Lourencini, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 103036432
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Helio Lourencini
fig. e Helio Lourencini, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 103036474
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Helio Lourencini
fig. f Helio Lourencini, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 93035988
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Breno Figueiredo
fig. g Breno Figueiredo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141419839
Centrosema brasilianum, photographed by Lucas Kaminski
fig. h Lucas Kaminski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177424039

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 17 botanical countries

Regions where Centrosema brasilianum is native: Argentina Northeast, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles Argentina NortheastBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaFrench GuianaGuyanaPanamáParaguayPeruSurinameVenezuela Netherlands AntillesVenezuelan Antilles
Native distribution of Centrosema brasilianum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
French Guiana FRG
Guyana GUY
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 123 in flower of 124 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Centrosema brasilianum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 123 of 124 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 12 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Bradburya brasiliana (L.) Kuntze
  • Bradburya insulana (Vell.) Kuntze
  • Centrosema brasilianum var. angustifolium Amshoff
  • Centrosema brasilianum var. brasilianum
  • Centrosema insulanum (Vell.) Steud.
  • Clitoria brasiliana L.
  • Clitoria brasiliensis Bonard
  • Clitoria formosa Kunth
  • Clitoria insulana Arrab.
  • Clitoria insulana Vell.
  • Nauchea brasiliana (L.) J.T.Descourt.
  • Vexillaria brasiliana (L.) Hoffmanns.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.