Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

White False Indigo is an erect native perennial forb growing from 3 to 6 feet high on mostly smooth stems with ascending branches in the upper part of the plant. Shoots of early spring resemble and may be mistaken for Asparagus.

The leaves are trifoliate (sometimes with 5 leaflets) with each leaflet oblanceolate (longer than wide, broadest above the middle, tapering to the tip) to ovate, with smooth margins, bluntly pointed to rounded tips, narrowed bases, the leaflets not stalked, but the leaf is on a stalk that has a pair of small stipules at the base of the stalk. Leaves dry to a black color.

The inflorescence is a tall raceme of stalked flowers atop the stem and held high above the upper leaves. There are small bracts below the inflorescence.

The flowers are perfect, 1/2 to 3/4 inch long, and are on short stalks with white corollas. The green calyx is tubular with 5 pointed lobes while the corolla forms a pea-type flower consisting of 5 petals where the larger upper banner petal turns upward and reflexes backward toward the calyx. There are two lateral petals projecting forward and two keel petals between them that house and hide the reproductive parts, which consist of 10 stamens with yellow anthers and a single style. Large insects such as bumblebees can force open the keel petals where they touch together to reach the pollen contained inside.

Seed: Fertile flowers produce an oblong inflated seed pod with the calyx firmly attached at one end and the remains of the style at the other. The pod is green at first then turning dark brown at maturity. The pod contains a row of brown kidney shaped seeds which are loose in the pod when mature. The pod splits open at maturity to release the seeds by wind or bird dispersion. As the stems and racemes become somewhat woody, pods frequently over-winter. Seeds can be germinated in the spring after cold storage. They need a short period of cold stratification plus scarification but scarification can be avoided in seeds are sown outside in the autumn. The pod is shorter but fatter than than of B. australis.

Habitat: False White Indigo grows from a rhizomatous root system with a taproot sending up one to several stems. It forms clumps rather than spreading colonies. Being a prairie plant it needs full sun, accepts wet-mesic to dry conditions in a variety of soils. It is not as well adapted to the home garden as False Blue Indigo but once established, makes a fine specimen and transplanting should be avoided.

Names: The true Indigo, from whose leaves is made blue indigo dye, is Indigofera tinctoria with pink to violet flowers, hence these Baptisia's with blue or white flowers are termed "false." The genus name Baptisia is from the Greek word bapto, meaning 'to dye.' A dye can be made from the false plant but it is inferior. The species name, alba, is Latin for "white." The variety macrophylla means 'large leaved' as this species has larger leaves than other variety Baptisia alba var. alba.

The author names for the plant classification are: First to classify was '(L.)' which refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. His work was amended by ‘Vent.’ which is for Étienne Pierre Ventenat (1757-1808), French botanist who published several works about plants in French gardens including the rare plants of Malmaison. French gardens grew many species imported from the New World. For more detail on the confusion in scientific names see the note at the bottom of this page.

Comparisons: A similar plant is False Blue Indigo, B. australis, but there the plant is shorter, not branched, the flowers blue, the leaves smaller and the pod longer but thinner.