This striking plant  has attractive foliage and showy yellow flowers that develop and grow into dark brown seed pods that attract birds and add winter interest to the garden. It does well in part to full sun and moist to average conditions. It prefers rich and loamy soils and adapts to sandy and rocky soils. Tolerates wet soils, and the horizontal root system helps the plant resist strong winds. This plant can grow up to 6 feet tall when the soil is fertile and moist. It tends to flop over with the weight of the flowers and seed pods. It has no serious insect problems.
 
Native habitats include river banks, moist meadows, pastures, and roadsides. Use as a hedge or border; in meadows or on slopes; and in butterfly, native, or pollinator gardens.
 
Plant Characteristics:
Grows 4-6' tall and 3-4' wide.
 
Grows in part or full sun.
 
Prefers loamy soils but adapts to sandy or rocky soils. Tolerates drough and occasional flooding.
 
Yellow, cup-shaped flowers are in panicles 1/2 - 1" long July-August. 
 
Compound pinnate leaves have 5-10 pairs of gray-green leaflets 2 1/2" long. Leaflets are oblong to elliptic with a pointed tip.
 
Wildlife Value:
Host plant for 6 species of Lepidoptera larvae, including specialist sleepy orange butterfly, cloudless sulphur butterfly, and black-tipped rudenia moth. Foliage and flower buds are eaten by the caterpillars. Pollen attracts bumble bees, and Insects such as ladybird beetles, ants, and flies consume the nectar of the glands found at the base of the petioles because the flowers are nectarless. Long brown seed pods feed turkeys and small mammals. The seeds may be eaten by some upland gamebirds, especially bobwhites.
 
Medicinal, Edible, and Other Uses:
The plant has many medicinal uses.  Cherokee and other Native Americans used the root of the plant to treat fevers, worms , fainting spells, and pneumonia.  
 
The leaves and seeds are used today as a laxative.