Clitoria mariana L.

Butterfly Pea; Atlantic Pigeon Wings

Vine

Perennial

Vascular

Atlantic Pigeon Wings is a native herbaceous perennial in the Bean family (Fabaceae). It is native to all of Alabama. Atlantic Pigeon Wings occurs in sandhills, in scrub oak woods, in dry pine or pine/hardwood forests, and on roadside banks. It is a perennial from a rhizome. Stems are erect to ascending, rarely twining near the tip, and unbranched or branched from near the base. The stems are green in color and glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, and trifoliate. The leaflets are ovate to lanceolate in outline, glabrous above and glabrous or short pubescent beneath, with entire margins. Flowers are produced in axillary 1-3 flowered racemes. Chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers are produced. The cleistogamous flowers lack petals. Chasmogamous flowers are resupinate with the standard oriented downward. It has a cylindrical green calyx with a tube longer than the teeth. The corolla is papilionaceous and blue-purple in color. The standard petal is spurless and has a small white keel and darker purple lines. The wing petals are small and attached to the strongly incurved keel petals. The fruit is a flattened legume. The seed are sticky.—A. Diamond

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Native

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