Common Name: Sonoran indigo

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Small shrub to 1 m or more, bark gray to brown and mostly smooth, herbage with appressed hairs.

Leaves: Odd pinnate with 5-15 leaflets, leaflets borne on very short pedicels, leaflets elongated oval to oblong, to 25 mm long and 10 mm wide, sometimes with small points at tips, strigose to canescent with scattered appressed hairs.

Flowers: Small white to pink flowers densely clustered in axillary racemes, calyx 5-toothed, corolla white or pink or red, pillionaceous flowers.

Fruits: Small, rounded pods with 1 seed, often with a protruding floral remnant at the tip, 6-7 mm long.

Ecology: Found on rocky slopes from 4,000-6,000 ft (1219-1829 m); flowers July-August.

Distribution: Ranges from southern Arizona and New Mexico south into Sonora.

Notes: Leaf shape is somewhat variable, but the fruits are a good indicator for this species, also look for the strigose appressed hairs, present even on young stems.

Ethnobotany: Known to be used as blue dye.

Etymology: Indigofera comes from the Latin indicum for indigo and ferre to bear, while sphaerocarpa comes from Greek sphaira and karpos, fruit.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher and Steve Buckley, 2011