Indigofera decora Lindl.

A low deciduous shrub 1 to 2 ft high, perhaps more in mild districts. Stems reddish brown, slender, bearing pinnate leaves 4 to 6 in. long at intervals of 1 to 11⁄2 in. Leaflets seven to thirteen, 1 to 21⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 to 1 in. wide, ovate-lanceolate to oval, with a short, abrupt, bristle-like tip, glabrous above, furnished beneath with fine hairs. Racemes 6 in. long, produced in the leaf-axils, twenty to forty flowers on each. Flowers 5⁄8 to 3⁄4 in. long, each borne on a slender stalk 1⁄4 in. long, the oblong standard petal white, lined with pale crimson towards the base; wing-petals pink. Calyx with broadly triangular lobes. Bot. Mag., t. 5063.

Native of China and Japan; introduced about 1845 by Fortune, who found it growing in the gardens of Shanghai. It is a charming dwarf shrub, flowering freely in July and August, its shoots being mostly cut back to the ground in winter. It is not adapted for rough treatment, and should be given a front place in the shrubbery, or even a place in the rock garden.