diff --git a/galleries/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/text_alignment.py b/galleries/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/text_alignment.py
index 7ad0d07c6572..4c0351e0bbc5 100644
--- a/galleries/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/text_alignment.py
+++ b/galleries/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/text_alignment.py
@@ -4,7 +4,8 @@
 ==============
 
 Texts are aligned relative to their anchor point depending on the properties
-``horizontalalignment`` and ``verticalalignment``.
+``horizontalalignment`` (default: ``left``) and ``verticalalignment``
+(default: ``baseline``.)
 
 .. redirect-from:: /gallery/pyplots/text_layout
 
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py b/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
index 2136ecb2eb94..d07c5103a202 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
@@ -632,7 +632,10 @@ def text(self, x, y, s, fontdict=None, **kwargs):
         """
         Add text to the Axes.
 
-        Add the text *s* to the Axes at location *x*, *y* in data coordinates.
+        Add the text *s* to the Axes at location *x*, *y* in data coordinates,
+        with a default ``horizontalalignment`` on the ``left`` and
+        ``verticalalignment`` at the ``baseline``. See
+        :doc:`/gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/text_alignment`.
 
         Parameters
         ----------
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/text.py b/lib/matplotlib/text.py
index 6371e03603d6..8734131dddc9 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/text.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/text.py
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ def __init__(self,
 
         The text is aligned relative to the anchor point (*x*, *y*) according
         to ``horizontalalignment`` (default: 'left') and ``verticalalignment``
-        (default: 'bottom'). See also
+        (default: 'baseline'). See also
         :doc:`/gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/text_alignment`.
 
         While Text accepts the 'label' keyword argument, by default it is not
@@ -1251,7 +1251,7 @@ def set_verticalalignment(self, align):
 
         Parameters
         ----------
-        align : {'bottom', 'baseline', 'center', 'center_baseline', 'top'}
+        align : {'baseline', 'bottom', 'center', 'center_baseline', 'top'}
         """
         _api.check_in_list(
             ['top', 'bottom', 'center', 'baseline', 'center_baseline'],