Appearance
Leaves have alternate arrangement, and are trifoliate, narrow, and oblong. The leaves are compound and share a common stalk. White flowers occur from a long spike inflorescence. The white flowers that bloom from the spike inflorescence are "Paplilonaceous" flowers which are identifiable by their irregular shape and five flower petals that have bilateral symmetry. Blooming occurs from April to July, earlier in the southern part of the range. The species is native to grasslands, but is grown in some gardens. It favors moist soils."Baptisia alba var. alba" can be differentiated from "B. alba var. macrophylla" on the basis that the former occurs only in the southeastern US and has fruits that hang downward when ripe.
"Baptisia alba" is described as a facultative upland plant in all parts of its range.
Habitat
"B. alba" is a host plant for caterpillars of the wild indigo duskywing butterfly and the indigo stem borer moth. Bumblebees pollinate the flowers.Defense
The species can be fatal to cows that ingest the plant. It can cause irritation to humans and is possibly poisonous.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
