Field Guide

Horse nettle is a native perennial with spiny stems and leaves, white to purplish flowers, and toxic fruits that look like tiny yellow tomatoes. It does well in disturbed habitats, and many people consider it a weed.

You may not recognize elephant’s foot as a member of the daisy or sunflower family because it lacks petal-like ray florets. Also, it has unusual, doubly compound flower clusters. And how did it get its name, anyway?

One of seven species of windflowers, or anemones in Missouri, liverleaf or round-lobed hepatica occurs in the eastern and southern portions of the Ozarks. It's a hairy plant with one flower per stalk; flowers may be white, pink, blue, or lavender.

The scarlet pimpernel, a native of Europe, is a tender annual with scarlet or brick-red flowers that close around 4 p.m., or whenever clouds shade the sun. When the sun comes out again, they reopen.

One of our more challenging plants to identify, meadow parsnip looks an awful lot like golden Alexanders. But you can do it! Look closely at the flower clusters and at the edges of the leaves, and then check the seeds.

Causasian bluestem and the closely related yellow bluestem are both aggressive, weedy degraders of pasturelands that escape cultivation and endanger native habitats. Learn more about these Old World grasses, and please don’t plant them!

Johnson grass is a native of the Mediterranean that is invasive in our country. It’s a weed that infests cropland and degrades native ecosystems, and heavy infestations are found in all the major river bottoms of Missouri.

Common reed is both native and exotic, but it’s the exotic subspecies that has become an invasive problem. Taking over wetlands with its dense stands, it changes the plant and animal communities and even the way the water flows.

Yellow bluestem is a nonnative, aggressive, weedy degrader of pasturelands that escapes cultivation and endangers native habitats. It blooms in Missouri in late June to July, far earlier than our native bluestems.

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.