Field Guide

You can find small colonies of lance-leaved loosestrife nearly throughout the state. It has showy but nodding yellow flowers and opposite, closely spaced, lanceolate or ovate leaves.

Square, unbranching stems, opposite leaves, two-lipped flowers, and a mild minty fragrance are clues Ohio horsemint is in the mint family. Tight, rounded flower clusters are stacked atop one another at the stem tips.

A square-stemmed plant with opposite leaves, self-heal bears two-lipped blue, lavender, or violet flowers in a cylindrical head. We have two varieties of self-heal in Missouri, one native and one introduced.

At first glance, you might overlook corn salad, except for the large colonies it often forms. The young leaves can be eaten as a salad green, hence the name.

Common in almost any kind of moist, wet or muddy habitat, fog fruit bears interesting round, purple flower heads that are ringed by small, white or pinkish flowers.

Mead's milkweed, an endangered wildflower, once flourished in the tallgrass prairies of the midwestern United States, including most of Missouri.

A spectacular plant of the tallgrass prairie, royal catchfly is threatened by habitat destruction and degradation throughout its range. Missouri has most of the world's populations of this noble plant.

Foxglove, or smooth beardtongue is a showy flower that is popular in native gardening. It is the tallest of the four white-flowered penstemons in Missouri.

Wild four-o’clock grows in fields, prairies, waste places, roadways, and railroads, often in poor soils. It’s called “four-o’clock,” because the magenta flowers don’t open until late afternoon.

Winged loosestrife is a native Missouri wildflower that should not be confused with the nonnative invasive purple loosestrife. Learn to distinguish between the two so you can report infestations of the latter!