Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpurea)
With its fine textured, delicate appearance, one wouldn’t expect purple prairie clover to be such an ecological powerhouse, adding nitrogen to nutrient poor soils, stabilizing degraded, erodible lands with a deep taproot, and providing a rich source of nectar and pollen to honey bees and a variety of native pollinators. Due to its ecological and aesthetic properties purple prairie clover is widely used on the upper edge of raingarden, biofiltration, and lakeshore plantings, in pollinator gardens, and in mine reclamation projects.