Abstract Drying characteristics of Cleome leaves in an oven dryer was studied. The impact of oven drying temperature (50, 60 and 70 °C) on moisture composition of the plant at a uniform air speed was considered. Eight drying models, namely, simple exponential, Page, Verma, modified Henderson and Pabis, Lewis, two term exponential, Newton, logarithmic, and Wang and Singh were fitted to drying data. Modified Henderson and Pabis model satisfactorily depicts the drying behaviour of Cleome leaves. Effective moisture diffusivity of Cleome ranged from 1.03 × 10−6 to 1.77 × 10−5 m2/s. Reliance of the calculated effective diffusivity on oven temperature was unavoidable. The required activation energy for oven drying of Cleome leaves was found to be 24.46 kJ/mol. The colour characteristics of Cleome leaves in terms of L*, a* and b* were determined. Based on the colour characteristics results, drying condition of 70 °C 90 min was found to be optimum for oven drying of Cleome leaves.