Content tagged with "Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines"

This shrub or small tree is distinctly ornamental in spring with small, clustered, rose-purple flowers covering the bare branches before the leaves.

Native to Europe and Asia, this tree is planted widely as an ornamental. In some parts of the United States and elsewhere in the world, this species becomes weedy, even invasive. In Missouri, you are most likely to encounter it in landscaped areas, and not in the wild.

Boy, this plant looks an awful lot like poison ivy! But this pleasant (and nontoxic!) plant can be easily told from its "evil cousin." Look carefully at the middle leaflet of its "leaves of three": On fragrant sumac, there is a much shorter (or even absent) leaf stalk on that middle leaflet. Also, fragrant sumac has hairy, reddish fruits (not waxy whitish ones).

One of Missouri's beautiful native honeysuckles, grape honeysuckle is found mainly in the northern two-thirds of the state. In the native plant garden, it is easy to grow, but it is not aggressive like the introduced invasive Japanese honeysuckle.