If you run across the red orchid tree, B. galpinii, you've found a real treasure, a semi-evergreen with red summer and fall flowers. Indigo, or Indigofera kirilow , is a low, spreading deciduous shrub with arching branches and wisterialike lavender-pink blooms. The flowers dangle in 5-inch racemes, most heavily in spring, then intermittently summer and fall, beneath oval leaflets. This shrub prefers a moist, organically enriched soil. It will tolerate a fair amount of sun, but I think it's at its best in partial shade.
Indigo spreads by stolons and is a good groundcover under trees.
It matures to more than 4 feet after a few years, but is easily pruned in late winter, early spring. Southerners used I. tinctoria to make blue dye. Once you have a plant or two that flowers, you should have offspring for years. Chocolate plant gets its common name from its brown, silver-splotched foliage with gray undersides. The small purple flowers sit atop tall, slender stems midsummer to early fall.