Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Pea Family

Derris taiwaniana

Also called Bean, Legumes, Bean Family, Legume Family, Pulse Family, Peas

Pea Family
Photo: Unknown author, CC-BY-SA-3.0

Derris taiwaniana is a perennial climbing shrub or liana of the pea family, native to wet tropical forests from Nepal to Taiwan and Indo-China. It is grown mainly as a wild or medicinal plant rather than as a garden ornamental, and the family Fabaceae itself contains many species with very different needs.

Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Shrub, Climber, Perennial
Light
Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist in the growing season and let the top layer dry slightly between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile, slightly acidic loam rich in organic matter.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Moderate
Safety
Toxic: Roots, stems and seeds contain rotenoids such as rotenone, which are toxic if swallowed and are used to stun fish.
Native range
Nepal to Taiwan and Indo-China
Climate
wet tropical

About

Derris taiwaniana is a perennial climbing shrub belonging to the genus Derris. It is known by several synonyms, including Millettia pachycarpa and M. taiwaniana. It is widely used in traditional practices, such as for poisoning fish, agricultural pesticide, blood tonic, and treatments of cancer and infertility. The bark fiber is used for making strong ropes.

It is endemic to south-east Asian region including Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. In India it is found only in the eastern region such as Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and West Bengal.

Other Derris plants

Derrises

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Derris taiwaniana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…