.
Commelina benghalensis is a wide-ranging plant, being native to tropical and subtropical Asia and Africa, an area otherwise known as the
paleotropics. In China it is commonly associated with wet locations. There it can be found from near sea level up to 2300 metres. It is present from the
provinces of
Hebei and
Shandong in the northeast, west to
Sichuan and in all provinces south to
Hainan, the southernmost province. It is also found in
Taiwan. In Japan the plant is restricted to the southern portions of the country from the southern
Kantō region westward and including the islands of
Shikoku and
Kyūshū. Although its roots and tubers are used as a food source,
C. benghalensis is not cultivated in
Ethiopia, where it grows as a weed. The plant has also been widely introduced beyond its range to the
neotropics In the southeastern United States the plant was collected in 1928, while it was first collected in Hawaii in 1909. and
North Carolina and spreading. It was added to the
Federal Noxious Weed List in 1983, and by 2003 was considered the most serious pest of Georgia's cotton crop due to widely used herbicides such as
glyphosate having little effect on it. It was introduced separately to California in the 1980s, making it the only introduced species of
Commelina in the western United States. It is associated with disturbed soils such as yards, lawns and cultivated areas, especially in cotton crops and orange groves. ==Morphology==