Flemingia macrophylla is a woody, deep-rooting leguminous shrub from tropical Asia, grown as fodder, green manure, and for medicinal and dye uses. It does best in warm, humid tropical conditions with a distinct dry season.
Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water regularly while establishing, then allow the top of the soil to dry between waterings; it tolerates dry spells once rooted.
Soil
Well-drained soil, tolerates acidic, low-fertility, clay and lateritic soils.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy
Native range
Trop. & Subtrop. Asia to N. Queensland
Climate
wet tropical
About
Flemingia macrophylla is a tropical woody leguminous shrub in the family Fabaceae. It is a multipurpose plant widely used in agriculture, crop improvement, fodder, dyes and for various therapeutic purposes. Perhaps, it is the most versatile species of Flemingia in terms of adaptation, medicinal and agricultural applications.
Where it grows
It is a native plant of subhumid to humid (sub-) tropics where average annual rainfall is typically 1100–3500 mm with up to 6 dry months, at altitude up to 2000 m above msl. Thus its natural habitat is found in Asia including Bhutan, southern China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Nepal, northern Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It has been cultivated and naturalised in sub-Saharan Africa (such as Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon), Central and South America (e.g. Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia), and tropical Australia.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Flemingia macrophylla 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.