Indigofera tinctoriaL.

true indigo

WFO wfo-0000195905 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter
fig. a Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-07 / obs. 186780149
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by ritirene
fig. b ritirene, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 116055868
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Ben Machado
fig. c Ben Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 60108050
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Michelle Sevcovas
fig. d Michelle Sevcovas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189880860
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. e Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 4461470
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. f Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 130260932
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Ben Machado
fig. g Ben Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 57261878
Indigofera tinctoria, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. h Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 76301525

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
989052
Filed as
Indigofera tinctoria L.
Det. by
A. H. Liogier 1983-01-01
Collected
A. H. Liogier 1983-11-12
Origin
PR
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 31 botanical countries

Regions where Indigofera tinctoria is native: Angola, Botswana, Burkina, Eswatini, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Yemen, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Laccadive Is., Maldives, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Peru AngolaBotswanaBurkinaEswatiniGhanaMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesSenegalTanzaniaZambiaZimbabweYemenAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaIndiaMyanmarPakistanSri LankaThailandVietnamWest HimalayaMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestPeru Laccadive Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.
Native distribution of Indigofera tinctoria, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Laccadive Is. LDV
Maldives MDV
Myanmar MYA
Nicobar Is. NCB
Pakistan PAK
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Angola ANG AFRICA
Botswana BOT
Burkina BKN
Eswatini SWZ
Ghana GHA
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Senegal SEN
Tanzania TAN
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Mexico Gulf MXG NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Yemen YEM ASIA-TEMPERATE
Peru PER SOUTHERN AMERICA

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 163 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.2 °C 17.2 °C 24.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.9 °C 30.3 °C 39.9 °C
Annual rainfall 488 mm 1,157 mm 2,364 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 74 mm 236 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 163 research-grade observations of Indigofera tinctoria 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.

Also published as 27 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 tinctoria (L.) Kuntze
  • Anil tinctoria var. media Kuntze
  • Anil tinctoria var. neglecta Kuntze
  • Anil tinctoria var. normalis Kuntze
  • Anil tinctoria var. orthocarpa (DC.) Kuntze
  • Anila tinctoria (L.) Kuntze
  • Cassia nectarifera Lancry
  • Indigofera anil var. orthocarpa DC.
  • Indigofera bergii Vatke
  • Indigofera cinerascens DC.
  • Indigofera diffusa Desv.
  • Indigofera emarginata Perr.
  • Indigofera houer Forssk.
  • Indigofera hover Forssk.
  • Indigofera indica Lam.
  • Indigofera microcarpa (A.Chev.) Rivas Mart., Lousã, J.C.Costa & Maria C.Duarte
  • Indigofera oligophylla Lam.
  • Indigofera oligophylla Lam. ex Baker
  • Indigofera ornithopodioides Schumach.
  • Indigofera orthocarpa (DC.) O.Berg
  • Indigofera sumatrana Gaertn.
  • Indigofera tinctoria Blanco
  • Indigofera tinctoria subsp. tinctoria
  • Indigofera tinctoria var. macrocarpa DC.

and 3 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.