Eastern Prairie Blue Wild Indigo occupies a narrow ecological niche that has grown narrower still: the calcareous glades, barrens, and oak savannas of the interior where limestone and diabase rock shape a particular kind of open, sun-drenched community. It is classified as an endangered species in North Carolina, which gives the plant a weight beyond its horticultural appeal. The species epithet, aberrans, means deviant or aberrant in Latin, so named because botanists initially mistook it for an unusual form of Baptisia minor. In gardens, this erect native grows 3 to 6 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide, with lavender-blue flowers that appear in spring against fresh light-green leaves.

The plant's most singular quality is what happens in winter. After setting seed in black inflated pods, the stems dry, go silvery-gray, and break near the base. The whole plant then rolls across the landscape like a tumbleweed, releasing pods and seeds as it travels. In a garden setting this can be managed by cutting back in late fall, but leaving it to its own devices reveals a survival strategy that has served it across the former prairies of North America for a very long time. Hardy in dry, poor soils with full sun to partial shade, it rewards the patient gardener who plants it into a pollinator or native garden and steps back.