![]() It grows best in rich loamy soil in full sun with moist to mesic conditions. If grown from seed, the plant will require several years of growth before a flower stem is produced and about five years to form a nice clump averaging 3 feet in height. Habitat: False Blue Indigo forms a shrub like mound, growing from a branched rhizomatous root system. Outdoor sowing in the fall does not require scarification. Seeds can be germinated in the spring after a short period of cold storage, but not all will be viable. As the stems and racemes become somewhat woody, pods frequently over-winter. The pod splits open at maturity to release the seeds by wind or bird dispersion. The pod contains a number of brown kidney shaped seeds which are loose in the pod when mature. The pod is green at first then turning black at maturity. 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. Large insects such as bumblebees can force open the keel petals where they touch together to reach the pollen contained inside. There are two lateral petals projecting forward which enclose two keel petals that are usually white, which in turn, house the reproductive parts, which include 10 stamens with yellow anthers and a single style. The corolla forms a pea-type flower consisting of 5 petals with the large upper banner petal turned upward with a notch at the center of the tip. The green calyx is tubular with 5 short rounded lobes which turn outward at the tips when the flower opens. The flowers are perfect, 1/2 to 3/4 inch long and are on short stalks with corollas in varying shades of blue. The inflorescence is a spike-like raceme held above the leaves. ![]() Leaves appear about one month before the flowers. The leaf itself has a short stalk and there is a pair of small stipules at the base of the leaf stalk. The leaves are trifoliate and alternate, with oblanceolate leaflets (widest above the middle) that have bluntly pointed tips, smooth margins and are stalkless. ![]() Stems become blackened and woody after seed production but usually remain upright overwinter and can then be discarded in the spring before new growth starts. False Blue Indigo is an introduced (in Minnesota) erect perennial forb, growing from 2 to 4 feet high in bush form on stout smooth green stems. ![]()
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