Clitoria ternatea

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Clitoria ternatea

Clitoria ternatea L., Fabaceae (Papilipnaceae), is  a pretty flowered, slender,  climbing, perennial herb.   It occurs throughout India in the wild and is also grown in the gardens. 

The bitter roots are a powerful  cathartic and diuretic.   The root bark is diuretic and laxative.  The seeds are a purgative and aperient.

The flowers yield a blue dye.   The leaves are used as fodder.

The seeds contain a fixed oil.   Both the seeds and the root bark contain tannins.   The leaves yield a d-lactone, aparajitin.   The blue and white varieties contain a resin glycoside.

Two varieties of this species occur, the blue flowered  (Clitoria ternatea1) and the much rarer white flowered  (Clitoria ternatea2), representing infraspecific genetic diversity.

A controversy regarding the identity of the medicinal plant called shankhupushpi (conch flower) in samskrit, rears up frequently.    The white flowered variety  of Clitoria ternatea matches the description offered by the name.   Since there do not seem to be any chemical differences between the two varieties, the blue flowered variety also gets into medicine.   An entirely different and distant species (Evolvulus alsinoides1), which also occurs in white and blue flowered varieties, but with regular wheel shaped flowers, is considered as shankhupushpi by some.  (See  Evolvulus alsinoides).