Indigofera tinctoria

Indigofera tinctoria L.

Family     : Fabaceae/leguminosae  

Common Name  : നീലയമരി(Mal)

         नील(Hin)

                                 True Indigo (Eng)

True Indigo is an erect shrub, 50-100 cm tall. Leaves are compound, 2.5-11 cm long, with 9-13 leaflets.Flowers are borne in ra­cemes 2.5-5 cm, laxly flowered; flower-cluster-stalk absent; bracts bristlelike, 1-1.5 mm. Flower-stalks are 4-5 mm, reflexed in fruit. Calyx is about 1.5 mm, with trichomes; teeth triangu­lar, as long as tube. Flowers are red; standard broadly obovate, 4-5 mm, outside with brown trichomes; wings about 4 mm; keel as long as wings. Stamens 4-5 mm; anthers heart-shaped. Ovary hairless. Pods are linear, deflexed and straight to semicircular but never sickle shaped, 2.5-3 cm, hairy or hairless; endocarp purplish red blotched. Seeds are 5-12 per legume, cubic, about 1.5 mm. 

Suffrutescent herbs, to 1.5 m tall; stem erect, appresed-pubescent. Leaves pinnately 5-13-foliolate; leaflets opposite, 5-22 x 5-12 mm, elliptic to obovate, base and apex rounded, darkening on drying; stipules c. 2 mm long, subulate. Inflorescence axillary, spicate-racemose, many-flowered. Flowers 5-7 mm long, red; pedicels c. 1 mm long. Calyx 2-3 mm long, pubescent; lobes narrow lanceolate, acuminate. Petals reddish; standard c. 4 mm long, suborbicular. Ovary 8-12-ovuled, hairy. Pod 2-3 cm long, c. 2 mm wide, linear, straight or slightly curved; seeds 8-12.