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Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Common name: Neel(Beng.); Indigo , Dyer’s indigo(Eng.).
Life cycle: Annual/Perennial
Native Range: It has been naturalized to tropical and temperate Asia, as well as parts of Africa, but its native habitat is unknown since it has been in cultivation worldwide for many centuries. Indigofera tinctoria is a shrub one to two meters high. It may be an annual, biennial, or perennial, depending on the climate in which it is grown. It has light green pinnate leaves and sheafs of pink or violet flowers. The plant is a legume, so it is rotated into fields to improve the soil in the same way that other legume crops such as alfalfa and beans are. |
