Indigofera hendecaphyllaJacq.

trailing indigo

WFO wfo-0000195442 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Presha Soogrim
fig. a Presha Soogrim, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-30 / obs. 195566126
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Margaret Burger
fig. b Margaret Burger, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 187270856
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. c Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175919084
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. d Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173275940
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Mori Chen
fig. e Mori Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170312208
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Margaret Burger
fig. f Margaret Burger, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 124740297
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Philani Hadebe
fig. g Philani Hadebe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 122680843
Indigofera hendecaphylla, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. h Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 113103956

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 36 botanical countries

Regions where Indigofera hendecaphylla is native: Angola, Benin, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, DR Congo, Eswatini, Gabon, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Réunion, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, China South-Central, China Southeast, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, India, Jawa, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam AngolaBeninCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadDR CongoEswatiniGabonKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarMalawiNigeriaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabweChina South-CentralChina SoutheastTaiwanAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSri LankaSumateraThailandVietnam ComorosRéunion
Native distribution of Indigofera hendecaphylla, 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
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Comoros COM
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Gabon GAB
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Nigeria NGA
Réunion REU
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Jawa JAW
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Taiwan TAI

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 78 in flower of 83 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Indigofera hendecaphylla 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. 78 of 83 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 621 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 8.0 °C 13.3 °C 24.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.2 °C 29.2 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 902 mm 2,373 mm 3,554 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 57 mm 145 mm 551 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 621 research-grade observations of Indigofera hendecaphylla 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 15 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.

  • Anil celebica (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Anil pectinata (Baker) Kuntze
  • Indigofera anceps Vahl ex Poir.
  • Indigofera bolusii N.E.Br.
  • Indigofera celebica Miq.
  • Indigofera endecaphylla P.Beauv.
  • Indigofera endecaphylla Jacq.
  • Indigofera endecaphylla Jacq. ex Poir.
  • Indigofera hendecaphylla var. angustata Harv.
  • Indigofera kleinii Wight & Arn.
  • Indigofera onobrychioides Baill.
  • Indigofera pectinata Baker
  • Indigofera prostrata Klein ex Wight & Arn.
  • Indigofera siamensis Hosseus
  • Indigofera spicata var. siamensis (Hosseus) de Kort & G.Thijsse

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.