Field Guide

It has grasslike leaves, but it’s not a grass. In fact, it’s in the same family as the common garden iris! Four species of blue-eyed grass grow in Missouri, and this one, often found on prairies, glades, and pastures, is the most common.

Often found on gravelly Ozark streamsides, shining blue star lifts its clusters of showy, light-blue flowers in late spring. A top choice for native wildflower gardening, it is interesting spring, summer, and fall.

When you consider the negative effects this plant has on natural habitats, and how hard it is to control or eradicate, you almost want to rename it “leafy scourge”! This invasive plant is spreading in our state. Learn how to identify it.

Branching, spreading, and tangling, hairy vetch forms dense colonies along highways and other disturbed sites. This softly hairy ground-covering plant has one-sided clusters of purple pea flowers.

Most common in the Ozarks, round-leaved groundsel is one of seven Packera species in our state. Its showy, bright yellow, daisylike flowers form flat-topped clusters that arise from sparsely leaved stems.

One of several native plants called dandelions, Carolina false dandelion is an annual with sulphur yellow flowers and puffy seedheads.

There are several members of the aster family that look something like common dandelions. But unlike the familiar lawn weed, two-flowered Cynthia is a native Missouri wildflower.

A native wildflower of forests, blufftops, glades, pastures, and roadsides, beaked hawkweed looks something like a hairy, yellow-flowering chicory. It is found mostly south of the Missouri River.

Yellow crownbeard and its close relatives are called wingstems because of lengthwise, winged ridges along the stems. Look for it blooming, May through October, in open and rocky areas.