Indigofera spicataForssk.

WFO wfo-0000195409 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Indigofera spicata, photographed by alexisk1234
fig. a alexisk1234, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205228333
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Leila Dasher
fig. b Leila Dasher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196570790
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Greg Tasney
fig. c Greg Tasney, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 196734499
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Josiah Londerée
fig. d Josiah Londerée, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196159749
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. e Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195614292
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Ben Machado
fig. f Ben Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194221909
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Neli Kanonerova
fig. g Neli Kanonerova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194891569
Indigofera spicata, photographed by Neli Kanonerova
fig. h Neli Kanonerova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192913897

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 42 botanical countries

Regions where Indigofera spicata is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Yemen AngolaBeninBurkinaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadCongoDjiboutiDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaGabonGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLiberiaMadagascarMalawiMaliMozambiqueNigerNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSenegalSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabweYemen MauritiusRéunion
Native distribution of Indigofera spicata, 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 Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
Djibouti DJI
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Liberia LBR
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Niger NGR
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Rwanda RWA
Senegal SEN
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Yemen YEM ASIA-TEMPERATE

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 381 in flower of 406 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Indigofera spicata 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. 381 of 406 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 1,988 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 8.2 °C 14.1 °C 21.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.4 °C 30.3 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 811 mm 1,366 mm 2,428 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 58 mm 176 mm 291 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 1,988 research-grade observations of Indigofera spicata 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 9 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 parkeri (Baker) Kuntze
  • Anil parvula (Delile) Kuntze
  • Anil spicata (Forssk.) Kuntze
  • Indigofera hendecaphylla var. acutifolia Chiov.
  • Indigofera hendecaphylla var. major Baker f.
  • Indigofera hendecaphylla var. parvula Chiov.
  • Indigofera parkeri Baker
  • Indigofera parvula Delile
  • Indigofera schimperiana Hochst.

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.