_Baptisia tinctoria_
_Flowers_--Bright yellow, papilionaceous, about 1/2 in. long, on short
pedicels, in numerous but few flowered terminal racemes. Calyx light
green, 4 or 5-toothed; corolla of 5 oblong petals, the standard erect,
the keel enclosing 10 incurved stamens and 1 pistil. _Stem:_ Smooth,
branched, 2 to 4 ft. high. _Leaves:_ Compounded of 3 ovate leaflets.
_Fruit:_ A many-seeded round or egg-shaped pod tipped with the
awl-shaped style.
_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, sandy soil.
_Flowering Season_--June-September.
_Distribution_--Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf states.
Dark grayish green, clover-like leaves, and small, bright yellow flowers
growing in loose clusters at the ends of the branches of a bushy little
plant, are so commonly met with they need little description. A
relative, the true indigo-bearer, a native of Asia, once commonly grown
in the Southern states when slavery made competition with Oriental labor
possible, has locally escaped and become naturalized. But the false
species, although, as Doctor Gray says, it yields “a poor sort of
indigo,” yields a most valuable medicine employed by the homoeopathists
in malarial fevers. The plant turns black in drying. As in the case of
other papilionaceous blossoms, bees are the visitors best adapted to
fertilize the flowers. When we see the little, sleepy, dusky-winged
butterfly (_Thanaos brizo_) around the plant we may know she is there
only to lay eggs, that the larvae and caterpillars may find their
favorite food at hand on waking into life.