Jatropha curcas, a member of the Euphorbia family, has long been used worldwide as a source of lamp oil and has potential contributions to energy security.Jatropha can grow on marginal lands, and therefore does not compete with the cultivation of crop.However, because of poor flowering, the low seed yield of Jatropha limits its economic potential.Here, we characterized a flower identity gene JcLFY, an ortholog of Arabidopsis LEAFY (AtLFY) from Jatropha.Protein sequence analysis shows the deduced amino acid sequence of JcLFY has 70%~ 97% identity to LFY orthologs from other plants.JcLFY-overexpressing Arabidopsis plantsappeared early flowering under either long day or short day conditions.Furthermore JcLFY overexpression complemented the delayed flowering phenotype of Arabidopsis LFY loss-of-functionmutant lfy-15.Our results indicate that JcLFYis an ortholog of AtLFY, which has may play a similar role in the regulation of flowering.The study may help in unraveling the function of JcLFY and in understanding the molecular mechanism of flower development in Jatropha.