Clitoria ternateaL.

Asian pigeonwingsDarwin peablue peabluebellvinebutterfly peacordofan pea

WFO wfo-0000179216 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. a Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-05-24 / obs. 200177712
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. b Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197849390
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. c Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 189564304
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Prasanta Hembram
fig. d Prasanta Hembram, CC0 1.0 / obs. 184009888
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by 謝麗霦
fig. e 謝麗霦, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173691042
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Jean-Paul Boerekamps
fig. f Jean-Paul Boerekamps, CC0 1.0 / obs. 174239207
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Иван Ковтун Ivan Kovtun
fig. g Иван Ковтун Ivan Kovtun, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170960920
Clitoria ternatea, photographed by Hazel Chang
fig. h Hazel Chang, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 168185822

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
05014348
Filed as
Clitoria ternatea L.
Det. by
T. Flynn 2010-01-01
Collected
S. T. Wakuk 2007-04-17
Origin
FM
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 40 botanical countries

Regions where Clitoria ternatea is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Caprivi Strip, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, China South-Central, China Southeast, Gulf States, Hainan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Yemen AngolaBeninBurkinaBurundiCameroonCaprivi StripCentral African RepublicDR CongoEritreaEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.KenyaMalawiMauritaniaMozambiqueNamibiaNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSenegalSierra LeoneSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabweChina South-CentralChina SoutheastGulf StatesHainanSaudi ArabiaTaiwanYemen Cape Verde
Native distribution of Clitoria ternatea, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Verde CVI
Caprivi Strip CPV
Central African Republic CAF
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Kenya KEN
Malawi MLW
Mauritania MTN
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Gulf States GST
Hainan CHH
Saudi Arabia SAU
Taiwan TAI
Yemen YEM

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 1,122 in flower of 1,149 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Clitoria ternatea 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. 1,122 of 1,149 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,989 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.9 °C 18.6 °C 24.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.0 °C 30.9 °C 38.7 °C
Annual rainfall 755 mm 1,619 mm 3,181 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 63 mm 503 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,989 research-grade observations of Clitoria ternatea that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 37 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.

  • Clitoria albiflora Mattei
  • Clitoria bracteata Poir.
  • Clitoria caelestis hort.
  • Clitoria coelestris Siebert & Voss
  • Clitoria mearnsii De Wild.
  • Clitoria parviflora Raf.
  • Clitoria philippensis Perr.
  • Clitoria pilosula Wall. ex Benth.
  • Clitoria spectabilis Salisb.
  • Clitoria tanganicensis Micheli
  • Clitoria ternatea f. albiflora (Voigt) Fantz
  • Clitoria ternatea f. fasciculata Fantz
  • Clitoria ternatea f. leucopetala Fantz
  • Clitoria ternatea f. subpolyadelpha Fantz
  • Clitoria ternatea f. ternatea
  • Clitoria ternatea var. alba Berhaut
  • Clitoria ternatea var. albiflora Voigt
  • Clitoria ternatea var. angustifolia Hochst. ex Baker f.
  • Clitoria ternatea var. bracteata (Poir.) DC.
  • Clitoria ternatea var. major Paxton
  • Clitoria ternatea var. pilosula (Benth.) Baker
  • Clitoria ternatea var. pleniflora Fantz
  • Clitoria ternatea var. ternatea
  • Clitoria ternatensium Crantz

and 13 more.

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.