Field Guide

Starting more than a century ago, this nonnative rose was planted across America — for many good reasons — but multiflora rose has proven to be invasive, and now the goal is to stop its spread.

Also called climbing rose, prairie rose is most common near woodlands, where it climbs and trails on neighboring shrubs and small trees.

Dewberry is a lot like common blackberry, except that instead of being a small shrub, its canes form trailing woody vines. Both plants are prickly, and both produce delicious deep purple berries!

Common blackberry is only one of several species of blackberry in our state. It grows in rocky, open woods, along bluffs and fencerows, on glades, and in thickets, old fields, and open valleys nearly statewide.

Colonies of smooth sumac are most noticeable in early autumn, because the leaves turn brilliant red! You can make drinks and jellies from the clusters of fuzzy red berries.

Unlike its cousin poison ivy, fragrant sumac is a peasant, nontoxic plant. Note the middle leaflet of its "leaves of three": On fragrant sumac, there is no (or at most a very short) leaf stalk on that middle leaflet. Also, fragrant sumac has hairy, reddish fruits (not waxy whitish ones).

Occasionally confused with poison ivy, Virginia creeper is easily identified by simply noticing that most of its leaflets are in fives, instead of threes. This common native vine is useful in landscaping.

Winged sumac is most common south of the Missouri River. The "wings" in the name refer to the narrow, flattened leafy structures running along the central stems of the compound leaves.