Indigofera suffruticosaMill.

anil de pasto

WFO wfo-0000195655 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Indigofera suffruticosa, photographed by Greg Tasney
fig. a Greg Tasney, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 203459368

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 46 botanical countries

Regions where Indigofera suffruticosa is native: Florida, Louisiana, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Mississippi, Texas, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Trinidad-Tobago, Turks-Caicos Is., Uruguay, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. FloridaLouisianaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestMississippiTexasArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSouthwest CaribbeanTrinidad-TobagoUruguayVenezuela ArubaBahamasCayman Is.Leeward Is.Netherlands AntillesTurks-Caicos Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Indigofera suffruticosa, 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
Argentina Northwest AGW
Aruba ARU
Bahamas BAH
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Southwest Caribbean SWC
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Turks-Caicos Is. TCI
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Louisiana LOU
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Mississippi MSI
Texas TEX

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 53 in flower of 113 examined

Proportion of examined Indigofera suffruticosa in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 7 14% 3% to 51%
Feb 1 6 17% 3% to 56%
Mar 1 4 too few examined
Apr 6 16 38% 18% to 61%
May 7 10 70% 40% to 89%
Jun 7 13 54% 29% to 77%
Jul 6 10 60% 31% to 83%
Aug 3 8 38% 14% to 69%
Sep 4 6 67% 30% to 90%
Oct 5 11 45% 21% to 72%
Nov 7 15 47% 25% to 70%
Dec 5 7 71% 36% to 92%

Peak flowering in Dec. Each bar is the share of Indigofera suffruticosa 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. 53 of 113 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 706 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.6 °C 13.4 °C 23.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.8 °C 29.8 °C 35.0 °C
Annual rainfall 626 mm 1,254 mm 2,598 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 23 mm 158 mm 354 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 706 research-grade observations of Indigofera suffruticosa 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 31 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 divaricata (Jacq.) Kuntze
  • Anil tinctoria var. brachycarpa (DC.) Kuntze
  • Anil tinctoria var. vera Kuntze
  • Anila tinctoria var. vera Kuntze
  • Indigofera angolensis D.Dietr.
  • Indigofera anil L.
  • Indigofera anil Sm. ex Wight & Arn.
  • Indigofera anil var. canescens J.A.Schmidt
  • Indigofera anil var. drepanocarpa Berg
  • Indigofera anil var. drepanocarpa O.Berg
  • Indigofera anil var. oligosperma Miq.
  • Indigofera anil var. polyphylla DC.
  • Indigofera argentea Blanco
  • Indigofera argentea var. caerulea F.M.Bailey
  • Indigofera comezuelo DC.
  • Indigofera cornezuelo Moc. & Sessé ex DC.
  • Indigofera divaricata Jacq.
  • Indigofera guatimala Lunan
  • Indigofera guatimalensis Moc. & Sessé ex Prain & Baker f.
  • Indigofera micrantha Desv.
  • Indigofera suffruticosa f. obtusifolia Fawc. & Rendle
  • Indigofera suffruticosa subsp. guatemalensis (Moc. & Sessé ex Prain & Baker f.) de Kort & G.Thijsse
  • Indigofera suffruticosa subsp. suffruticosa
  • Indigofera suffruticosa var. canescens (J.A.Schmidt) Lobin

and 7 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.