Species
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Baptisia australis (L.) R.Br.

Baptisia, Blue False Indigo, Blue Wild Indigo, streamside blue indigo

Climate known 62 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Baptisia australis, commonly known as blue wild indigo or blue false indigo, is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae (legumes). It is a perennial herb native to much of central and eastern North America and is particularly common in the Midwest, but it has also been introduced well beyond its natural range. Naturally it can be found growing wild at the borders of woods, along streams or in open meadows. It often has difficulty seeding itself in its native areas due to parasitic weevils that enter the seed pods, making the number of viable seeds very low. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Baptisia australis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Baptisia

Baptisia is a genus in the legume family, Fabaceae. They are flowering herbaceous perennial plants with pea-like flowers, followed by pods, which are sometimes inflated. They are native to woodland and grassland in eastern and southern North America. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Baptisia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Fabaceae
Described by
(L.) R.Br.
Native to
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri +22
Wild records
1517 in range· 516 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Jul, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1110mm/yr
12 wet months · peak May 118 mm (CHELSA)
Light
13–41DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to October in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1110 mm a year, wettest May at 118 mm, driest January at 68 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -16.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Baptisia caerulea Eaton & Wright; Podalyria australis (L.) Willd.; Podalyria caerulea (Trew) Michx.; Ripasia caerulea (Trew) Raf.; Sophora australis L. and 1 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to October in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (809 mm of 1110 mm) takes 8 months, March to October. Mean temperature moves 25.8 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to April.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1110 mm a year, wettest May at 118 mm, driest January at 68 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1110 mm a year at the habitat, 809 mm of it March to October. Wettest month May at 118 mm, driest January at 68 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 887 mm to 1296 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 41 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -16.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -16.4 °C, the absolute minimum -28.8 °C, about 122 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells -8.0 °C to 0.6 °C), warmest day 30.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -16.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 59% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 5 °C in Jan to 31 °C in Jul; mean night from -4 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1110 mm of rain a year, most in May. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 925 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -28.8 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost34.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)-28.8° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 13–41RH 55–59 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 925 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C5 / -0–108 / 2–1313 / 7–1819 / 13–2324 / 19–2728 / 24–3131 / 26–3330 / 25–3326 / 21–2919 / 15–2313 / 9–166 / 2–11
Night °C-4 / -8–1-2 / -7–22 / -3–68 / 4–1113 / 9–1618 / 15–2121 / 17–2421 / 17–2316 / 13–1910 / 7–134 / 1–7-2 / -5–2
Rain mm68 / 21–9468 / 31–9688 / 63–11596 / 78–117118 / 97–147115 / 99–149108 / 77–12796 / 78–11696 / 78–11692 / 68–12086 / 48–11479 / 30–112
DLI15 / 12–1820 / 18–2327 / 25–2934 / 32–3637 / 36–3941 / 38–4240 / 38–4436 / 33–4029 / 26–3322 / 19–2515 / 12–1813 / 10–16
RH %58 / 56–6257 / 55–6056 / 55–5755 / 54–5757 / 56–5958 / 57–6058 / 54–6058 / 54–6158 / 55–6157 / 55–6058 / 56–6059 / 57–62

Each figure is the median across the 925 grid cells holding the 1283 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 973:2140 (41.325, -72.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -28.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -16.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.4 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 925 distinct grid cells holding the 1283 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 973:2140 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 41.50_-73.125, lapse-corrected -101 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 48 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeIowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia· introduced: Austria, Ontario, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, District of Columbia
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker38.494, -96.343 · in the densest population, 699 records (46% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1517 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 516 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1987 km away. 220 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 234 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1517 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Baptisia australisBaptisia australisBaptisia australisBaptisia australisBaptisia australisBaptisia australisBaptisia australisBaptisia australis

Photographs: (c) aarongunnar, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Alaina Krakowiak, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Ryan Sorrells, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Baptisia australis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Quinolizidine Alkaloids as Nitrogen Source for Lupin Seedlings and Cell Cultures
Michaël Wink, Ludger Witte (1985) · Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C
Stratification Improves Seed Germination of Five Native Wildflower Species
Carlma B. Bratcher, John M. Dole, Janet C. Cole (1993) · HortScience
Flavonoids of Baptisia australis (Leguminosae)
Philippe Lebreton, K. R. Markham, W.T. Swift, Oung-Boran (1967) · Phytochemistry
New isoflavone glycoside from Baptisia australis
K. R. Markham, W.T. Swift, Tom J. Mabry (1968) · The Journal of Organic Chemistry
The Alkaloid Patterns of Cell Suspension Cultures and Differentiated Plants of Baptisia Australis and Their Biogenetic Implications
Michaël Wink, Tobias Hartmann, Ludger Witte, H. M. Schiebel (1981) · Journal of Natural Products
Plant selection for roadside rain gardens in cold climates using real-scale studies of thirty-one herbaceous perennials
Kirstine Laukli, Hilde Vinje, Trond Knapp Haraldsen, Eva Vike (2022) · Urban forestry & urban greening
Influence of Drought Stress and Mycorrhizae on Growth of Two Native Forbs
Jayne M. Zajicek, B. A. D. Hetrick, Mary Lewnes Albrecht (1987) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Triterpenoidal saponins from Baptisia australis
Manabu Udayama, Junei Kinjo, Toshihiro Nohara (1998) · Phytochemistry

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Baptisia 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 62 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.