Indigofera longiracemosa (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Indigofera longiracemosa Boiv. ex Baillon

Family: Leguminosae - Papilionoideae

Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and India; introduced in Indonesia.

Green manure, but its present utilization in South-East Asia is doubtful. Formerly also used in Africa as a source of indigo.

• Branching, rather woody herb, up to 130 cm tall. Branches slender, with few small bristles.
• Leaves pinnately compound; stipules subulate, about 2 mm long; petiole 1.5 cm long; leaflets elliptical-lanceolate, up to 2 cm × 1 cm, blackish when dried, sparsely strigose.
• Inflorescence a many-flowered, sessile raceme, up to 10 cm long; bracts linear-lanceolate, 1 mm long, caducous; pedicel about 1 mm long, strongly reflexed after flowering.
• Calyx tubular, brown strigose, up to 1.2 mm long, lobes longer than the tube; corolla densely brown-strigose outside.
• Pod subcylindrical, up to 2 cm × 2.5 mm, straight, pointed, sparsely bristly, brown, 5-6-seeded.

I. longiracemosa is found in coastal areas, up to 100 m altitude in Africa. In Java it is suitable at about 1650 m altitude, but is attacked by pests at lower altitudes. The life-cycle is about 2 years.

• Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr., R.C., 1963-1968. Flora of Java. 3 volumes. Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. 647, 641, 761 pp.
• Flora of Tropical East Africa (various editors), 1952-. Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations, London, United Kingdom & A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
• Heyne, K., 1950. De nuttige planten van Indonesië [The useful plants of Indonesia]. 3rd Edition. 2 volumes. W. van Hoeve, the Hague, the Netherlands/Bandung, Indonesia. 261, 1450 pp.

• M.S.M. Sosef & L.J.G. van der Maesen