Curly-indigo

Aeschynomene indica, commonly known as Indian jointvetch, curly-indigo or budda pea, is an annual or short-lived perennial herb or subshrub in the family Fabaceae with a pantropical distribution, occurring in wet ground, rice fields, ditches and pond margins across Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas. It grows erect to 0.5 to 2 metres tall, with slender, somewhat woody, hollow stems that are buoyant and float when shed. Leaves are pinnately compound with 20 to 60 pairs of small narrowly oblong leaflets that are sensitive and fold together when touched or at night. Small pale yellow pea-shaped flowers, sometimes marked with reddish-purple veins, appear in short axillary racemes during the warm season. The fruit is a flattened lomentum that breaks at maturity into several one-seeded segments, each square to oblong, glabrous and easily dispersed by water. The species is a weed of rice cultivation in many regions and is used as a green manure and forage crop.