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Indigo-bush

Amorpha fruticosa · Fabaceae

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; New Mexico; Ohio / Midwest; Oregon (Willamette Valley); Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 5 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
    • NM; partial normalized coverage · 2003-10-08

      New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.

  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.

  • Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley (EM 9103) · Official scoped edition
    • Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01

      OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.

  • FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) · Official scoped edition
    • Arizona at or above 3,000 feet (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-12-01

      AZ1289 is explicitly limited to Arizona elevations of 3,000 feet and higher. FireApproved publishes 69 exact owners as regional Arizona context, retaining every water and elevation condition. It is never promoted to statewide low-desert guidance or an independent Tier 1 vote.

  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, ID, IL, KY, MD, MN, ND, NM, OR, PA, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI, WY.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
1 legal-list record; set a location to match exact scope.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Indigo-bush (Amorpha fruticosa)
Photo: (c) Sandy Wolkenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
shrub
USDA hardiness
Minimum 3a; upper limit not documented
Mature height
~10 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
high
Current cited native range
AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, ID, IL, KY, MD, MN, ND, NM, OR, PA, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI, WY
Grows in
AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE +39
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; New Mexico; Ohio / Midwest; Oregon (Willamette Valley) +2
Family
Fabaceae
Evidence
6 cited sources

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

21

exact source areas

Current introduced

1

exact source area

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

21 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • North Dakota (ND)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • Wyoming (WY)
1 introduced source area · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • New York (NY)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (5)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Amorpha fruticosa (Indigo-bush). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/amorpha-fruticosa/. Last verified 2026-08-23.