Wednesday, January 25, 2012

ABC Wednesday-B for blue pea

Clitoria ternatea is the botanical name. (Family : Fabaceae) I have written about this beautiful blue flowers before. The Blue Pea Flower, also popularly known as Bunga Telang (in Malay), also called Butterfly Pea, is a common ingredient used as natural food dye for making nonya kuehs. Read my previous post here: Nonya Cooking Ingredient - Bunga Telang

In today post, I will share with you some of my collection photos and more information of this edible plant.

Clitoria ternatea, such an imaginative name, but yet most of us only remember it as blue pea or butterfly pea. It is a perennial herbaceous plant. The pea-shaped flower is a bit hairy on the back. Though attractive, but I hardly see insects attracted to this flower, lacking of nectar I suppose.

Its leaves are elliptic and obtuse, with three leaflets growing from the slender stem. It grows as a vine or creeper, doing well in moist neutral soil. There are also white, pink, light purple and double petal variants of Butterfly Pea, but the the common one is the blue single-petaled flower variety.

This is the butterfly Pea that has double-petaled flowers in vivid deep blue color. They are about 4 cm long by 3 cm wide. This striking blue flowers demonstrated it's beauty on the roadside fence when I took the photo.

They are commonly and easily grown from seeds, they are so easy to bloom beautiful flowers everyday under full sun conditions and needs only a little attention.  It is commonly found on open fields and wastelands.

As I know the blue flowers variety is used to extract its dye to colour the Nonya Kuehs, the white variety is known to treat goitre.

The fruits are 5 – 7 cm long, flat pods with 6 to 10 seeds in each pod. They are edible when tender.

I am linking up this post with ABC Wednesday

14 comments:

Giga said...

Dziękuję za wiedzę. Różowy kwiatek śliczny, ale niebieski jest mi bliższy sercu, bo to mój ulubiony kolor kwiatów. Pozdrawiam.*** Thank you for understanding. Pink flower pretty, but the blue is closer to me heart, because this is my favorite color flowers. Yours.

Sean L said...

There is a white version, which is useless from the culinary point of view. The name is quite cheeky: Clitoria - shaped like the clitoris.

PetitBakes said...

Where can i get the seeds for this plant?

Singapoare Plants Lover said...

I have some seeds of blue pea, will give out with free (excluding postage),Please contact me.

Anonymous said...

Hi I just stumble on your blog and have been looking for the seeds for blue pea flower, do you know where else i could get it?

Jennifer

Singapoare Plants Lover said...

Hi, I have a few blog friends asking where to buy the seeds, I don't really know but I have a lot from my own plants, contact me if you want it.

yvonne said...

Hi,

I would like to have some seeds from the double flower blue pea.
Thanks!
Yvonne

Singapoare Plants Lover said...

Hi Yvonne

How should I contact you regarding the seeds...

yvonne said...

My email address: chengkaryin@yahoo.com.sg

Thanks!
Yvonne

yvonne said...

Hi,

I can be contacted at chengkaryin@yahoo.com.sg

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I would like to have some seeds from the double flower blue pea and for my cousin too.

You can reply me via cqmsang@gmail.com

Thanks.
Andrew

Anonymous said...

Hi , i would like to buy the double flower blue pea seed can you please reply me via jessie_santoso@yahoo.com

Thank you
Jessie

Anonymous said...

Hi, i would like to buy the double flower blue pea seed . Could you please contact me via jessie_santoso@yahoo.com
How can i contact you?

Thank you
Jessie

Anonymous said...

Hi, i would like to buy the double flowers blue pea seeds. I wanna grow it in indonesia. Could you please reply me via jessie_santoso@yahoo.com
I will be in singapore next week could you please leave your number so i can contact you when i am there

Thank you
Jessie