Flower:

Dense cascading raceme 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) long of creamy yellow pea-shaped flowers, often touching the ground from the weight of the blooms. Flowers are ¾ to 1 inch (20 to 28 mm) long, with a broad upper petal (standard) flaring up, notched in the middle, the large lateral wings below it extending forward, flanking the keel underneath. The tubular calyx holding the flower has short silky hairs and a short stalk, with a hairy, leafy bract at the base of the stalk.

Leaves and stem:

Leaves are alternate, palmately compound with 3 leaflets, stalkless or nearly so. Leaflets are elliptic to somewhat spatula-shaped, widest near the middle or the tip, 1½ to 3 inches (to 8 cm) long, 1/3 to ¾ inch wide, toothless, hairy, tapered at the base and rounded to pointed at the tip. At the base of the compound leaf is a pair of leaf-like appendages (stipules), lance to narrowly egg-shaped, pointed at the tip, and may appear to be 2 additional smaller leaflets. Stems are multiple from the base, branched, stout, covered in short velvety hairs. In fall when the whole plant dries down, the stems easily break off near the base, creating a tumbleweed that spreads the seed around.

Fruit:

Fruit is a stout, cylindrical pod up to 2 inches (3 to 5 cm) long with a spiked tip and on a short stalk emerging from the calyx tube. Pods are variously covered in short hairs and ripen from green to dark purplish black.

Seed is a small creamy yellow brown bean about 1/8 inch long coated in a sticky resin.

Notes:

Both Plains Wild Indigo (a.k.a. Cream Wild Indigo) and Minnesota's other native wild indigo species, White Wild Indigo (Baptisia lactea), reach the northern tip of their ranges in our SE counties and are listed as state Special Concern species due to loss of habitat, primarily to agriculture. Both are increasingly showing up in native seed plantings and garden centers, which makes delimiting their native ranges a bit trickier. Our MN distribution maps have tried to avoid including restorations or other plantings, but these species are very likely to be included in some. A blue-flowered species, Baptisia australis, not native to Minnesota but is to our south and east, is also present in the garden trade and may show up in some plantings. All are easy to grow from seed, B. lactea doing better in heavier soils and B.luecophaea preferring sandier soil.

When in bloom our two natives are easy to distinguish, B. lactea having long, erect to ascending racemes of loosely arranged white flowers and B. leucophaea a shorter, tighter, often arching cluster of creamy yellow flowers. Otherwise, B. lactea is hairless, typically 3 to 4 feet tall, and the compound leaves are stalked, while B. leucophaea is hairy, tends to be little more than knee high, and leaves are stalkless or nearly so.

The taxonomy of Baptisia leucophaea has bounced around in recent years. In Minnesota it was formerly known as a variety of B. bracteata (var. glabrescens or var. leucophaea) and is still listed as such in some of references. B. alba var. macrophylla has been listed as a synonym of both our natives, which, to me, is astounding but not really surprising.