All our species are showy, large perennials, long popular for prairie and ornamental  plantings. Unlike Silphium species, they do not seem to establish and spread along railways and roadasides.

Baptisia australis (L.) R. Br., a more southern species with large blue flowers and glabrous foliage similar to that of B. lactea except for slightly larger stipules, is native no closer to Michigan than western Pennsylvania and the Ohio River valley of Indiana and Ohio. It has been collected on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, presumably planted but possibly escaped from cultivation. It is also a component of so called prairie plantings, despite not being native to Michigan prairies, and was collected as "Persisting...about 20 years" in such a planting in Lenawee Co.

1. Flowers bright yellow, 1.1-1.5 cm long; body of fruit (excluding stalk and beak) ca. (0.6-) 0.8-1 cm long; leaflets 0.6-2.3 (-3.3) cm long.

B. tinctoria

1. Flowers white or cream, (1.8-) 2.1-2.5 cm long; body of fruit ca. 2-3 cm long; leaflets mostly (2.1-) 2.5-6 cm long.

2. Stem and leaves glabrous; stipules usually very small.

B. lactea

2. Stem and leaves pubescent; stipules sometimes almost as large as the leaflets.

B. leucophaea