Partridge Pea
Chamaecrista fasciculata
Partridge Pea is found throughout Florida and North America in dry, sandy soil both inland and on sand dunes. I have even found colonies of it just out of reach of the ocean in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
Plants near the ocean seem to grow shorter (under two feet) than the inland ones which can be up to five feet tall. Both last one year and will come back from seed if pods are opened and the seeds scratched into the soil surface. Make sure the pods have seeds that rattle inside them or else you will have empty weevil eaten seeds.
The cloudless sulfur, sleepy orange, orange sulphur, little yellow, gray hairstreak and ceraunus blue butterflies lay their eggs on this plant.
Quail and other seed eating birds eat the seeds and deer eat the leaves. The roots put nitrogen into the soil making poor soils richer. Many species of bees, including bumblebees, and butterflies visit the flowers. The plants used to quake with all the bumblebees nectaring on them, but now we have almost no bumblebees in South Florida.
Partridge Pea mixes well with Salvia, Southern Beebalm, Dune Sunflower, Gaillardia and Beach Creeper. Also, mix in Chapman’s Cassia, Beach Grasses, Keys Lily, Coontie, Spiderwort Florida Keys Thoroughwort and other coastal and pineland plants.
You must have this in a butterfly garden.