Blue False Indigo [ Filler ]

We’ve had this plant for a while and I have posted a few photos before, but I haven’t captured this stage of the flowers.

After reading the MoBoGa write-up below, I should photograph the fruits when they turn black!

From Missouri Botanical Garden:
“Baptisia australis, commonly called blue false indigo, is an upright perennial which typically grows 3-4' tall and occurs in rich woods, thickets and along streambanks from Pennsylvania south to North Carolina and Tennessee. It features purple, lupine-like flowers in erect racemes (to 12") atop flower spikes extending well above a foliage mound of clover-like, trifoliate, bluish-green leaves (leaflets to 2" long). Blooms in spring. Flowers give way to inflated seed pods (to 2.5" long) which turn charcoal black when ripe and have considerable ornamental interest. Seeds rattle around in the blackened pods which were once popularly used by children as rattles. Stems with seed pods are valued additions to dried flower arrangements.

“The genus name Baptisia comes from the Greek word bapto meaning 'to dye'.

“Specific epithet means southern.

“The common name of false indigo refers to the use of certain native baptisias by early American colonists as a substitutes [sic], albeit inferior, for true indigo (genus Indigofera) in making dyes.”

Species page at PhytoImages (not a secure https site)

[ PXL_20230507_234445016_9x12tm :: cell phone ]

Looking back
  1 year ago: “Still practicing with ON1”
 2 years ago: “Happy Mother’s Day”
 3 years ago: “Two beards [Filler]”
 4 years ago: “Bye-bye, land line”
 5 years ago: No post
 6 years ago: No post
 7 years ago: “Barn quilt!” (I still look for them, Kim!)
 8 years ago: “Blue False Indigo” — the first post!
 9 years ago: “Convergence”
10 years ago: “Before it opens…”
11 years ago: “Fowl weather”
12 years ago: “Mother’s Day tulips”