Partridge Pea is a delightfully easy native plant to grow and is excellent for many types of wildlife. The name partridge pea comes from the long seed pod that is a favorite food of many birds including northern bobwhite quail. It creates cover for songbirds, game birds, waterfowl, and small mammals. Pollen from the flower is carried and eaten by long-tongued bees, honey bees, bumblebees, long-horned bees, and leaf-cutting bees. In fact, it is the sole source of food for two species of native specialist bees. Eight species of butterflies and moths in our area use partridge pea as a larval host plant, including the cloudless giant sulphur, orange sulphur, and sleepy orange butterflies.

Interestingly, there is no nectar in partridge pea flowers but the plants have special nectar-producing glands (called extrafloral nectaries) located at the base of each leaflet that attract an entirely different set of insects, including bees, wasps, flies, and ants. You may know that flowers produce nectar to attract pollinators that can pick up and spread pollen to other flowers since plants cannot move it around themselves. So what purpose then would nectar outside of a flower serve? It appears that the nectar glands attract insects that will aggressively defend the plant against leaf herbivores like caterpillars. The ants and wasps get a source of food and the plant gets its own personal bodyguards throughout the entire growing season.

Partridge pea is in the legume family and hosts symbiotic microbes in its root nodules that fix nitrogen from the air into the soil - it improves your soil by doing the fertilizing for you! It is also sometimes called the “sleeping plant” or “sensitive plant” because the leaves fold closed at night and sometimes in response to touch. That’s not the only relatively quick movement this plant has up its sleeve, however: as the seed pods mature they dry and twist, building up tension. When the pods pop open, they twirl like a corkscrew and fling seeds up to five feet away!

Check out the information below to see if this native might be a good fit for your yard!

Bloom Time: July - September

Height: 2'-3' 

Cultivation: Native Virginia short-lived perennial, grown as annual, often included in seed mixes to act as a cover crop and add a little color during the first year. Full or part sun, tolerates poor soil and wide pH range. Direct sow in the garden in fall. Can self-sow aggressively. Avoid planting anywhere near pasture land due to toxicity to grazing animals.