Amorpha fruticosa. a. Upper part of a plant with flowers, b. Branch with fruits, c. Young leaflets, d. Flower, e. Pistil. f. Fruit cluster. Drawn by Vivian Frazier. From Correll and Correll 1972.

By the early 1700s, another American plant from the Carolinas had caught the attention of the European horticultural trade. A London book on cultivated plants listed for sale Barba jovis americana, pseudo-acaciae foliis, flosculus purpureus minimis (American Jobe’s beard, with leaves resembling acacia, flowers very small and purple) (Angliclici hortulani 1730). This species appeared in two books in the 1730s and two in the 1740s, and then Linnaeus finalized its name in 1753 as Amorpha fruticosa. Somewhere along the

line, it became known in English as “lead plant,” with the belief that lead could be found wherever it grew (OED 1971).