NAT. ORDER. 
Leguminosce. 
INDIGOFEEA YIOLACEA. PUEPLE INDIGO PLANT. 
Class XVII. Diadelphia. Order IV. Decandria. 
Gen. Char. Calyx, five-cleft. Vexillum, roundish, emarginate: — 
keel furnished with a subulated spine on each side. Stamens^ 
diadelphous. Styles, filiform. Legume, continuous, two-valved. 
Spe. Char. Leaves, various, usually irregular, pinnate, or digitate. 
Stipules, small, not united with the petiole. Flowers, in axillary 
racemes, purple, blue or white. 
This plant has a root which is perennial, irregular, larg-e and 
woody, blackish outside, yellowish within, and sending 1 off many slen- 
der branches or fibres. The stems are two or three feet high, round 
and smooth, of a yellowish-green color, with black spots, very much 
branched at the top ; the leaves are alternate, small, somewhat heart- 
shaped, and broadest towards the outer end ; the blossoms axe of a 
purple or white color, some species have a yellow flower, and are suc- 
ceeded by a swelled oblong - pod, of a bluish or blackish hue, as indeed 
is the whole plant, and becoming- quite black on drying- ; the taste of 
the root is unpleasantly subacrid and nauseous. 
This shrub is cultivated mostly in warm climates in dry sterile 
soils. In North Carolina, Florida and Arkansas, it is raised in larg-e 
quantities as an article of trade. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties. A well-known and highly 
important dye-stuff is obtained from this and other species of the In- 
digqfera. In the process of preparing- it, the plant is macerated in 
water ; fermentation takes place ; the liquor becomes of a greenish 
Vnr. nr.— 133. 
