Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Equisetum (3 spp. in Missouri)
Description
Horsetails, or scouring rushes, are in the genus Equisetum. They’re easy to recognize with their jointed, hollow stems. Like ferns, they reproduce via spores instead of flowers and seeds.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Dryopteris marginalis
Description
Marginal shield fern is an evergreen fern with scaly rhizomes and leaf stalks. It grows in bouquet-like clusters on shaded ledges of sandstone bluffs and rock outcrops.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Asplenium platyneuron
Description
Ebony spleenwort is a common forest-floor fern with wiry, shiny, dark brown leaf stalks and a ladderlike series of dark green, narrowly oblong leaflets.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Adiantum spp. (2 in Missouri)
Description
Maidenhair ferns are distinctive and beautiful. Their leaflet veins divide by twos over and over, forming a fan pattern.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Polystichum acrostichoides
Description
Christmas fern is one of the most common ferns in Missouri woodlands. Its leathery leaves are evergreen, and pioneers used it for making Christmas wreaths.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Cystopteris protrusa (formerly C. fragilis var. protrusa)
Description
Lowland brittle fern, also called southern fragile fern, is an easily recognized species. It’s a common springtime sight in moist forest soils.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Phegopteris hexagonoptera
Description
Broad beech fern has broadly triangular leaves that tilt backward from their long, upright stalks. Wings of leafy tissue connect the main leaf lobes along the main axis, and the bottommost lobes usually point downward.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Vernonia baldwinii
Description
Ironweeds are tough, grayish-green, branching plants known for their fluffy-looking clusters of reddish-purple florets. They are a familiar sight on roadsides and pastures. Identify western ironweed by the bracts at the base of the flowerheads.
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Scientific Name
Alliaria petiolata
Description
Because each plant disperses a large number of seeds, garlic mustard can outcompete native vegetation for light, moisture, nutrients, soil, and space as it quickly colonizes an area.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Hydrastis canadensis
Description
Large, crinkled, palmately 5-lobed leaves distinguish golden seal, which occurs in moist woods in the Ozarks and Central Missouri. Populations have been declining due to root diggers.
See Also
About Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants in Missouri
A very simple way of thinking about the green world is to divide the vascular plants into two groups: woody and nonwoody (or herbaceous). But this is an artificial division; many plant families include some species that are woody and some that are not. The diversity of nonwoody vascular plants is staggering! Think of all the ferns, grasses, sedges, lilies, peas, sunflowers, nightshades, milkweeds, mustards, mints, and mallows — weeds and wildflowers — and many more!