Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 1 - 7 of 7 results
Photo of white snakeroot leaves and flowers
White Snakeroot
Ageratina altissima (formerly Eupatorium rugosum)
White snakeroot looks very similar to thoroughworts, but it has triangular leaf blades that are more broadly angled or rounded at the base. White snakeroot is common statewide. It’s a toxic plant if eaten, so it’s good to be able to identify it.
Photo of Solomon’s seal flowers and leaves
Solomon's Seal
Polygonatum biflorum
Solomon's seal grows statewide in moist, rich earth. The greenish-white flowers dangle like little bells beneath the leaves, under the gracefully arching stems.
Photo of Chinese yam showing leaves and bulbils
Chinese Yam
Dioscorea oppositifolia (sometimes called D. batatas)
Similar to kudzu, Chinese yam is an aggressive vine that overtakes nearly everything within reach that stands still long enough! Learn more about this invasive plant — and please don’t plant it!
Photo of pokeweed plant with dangling stalks of ripe and unripe berries.
Pokeweed
Phytolacca americana
A tall, smooth, branching plant with red stems and juicy, dark purple berries, pokeweed is both toxic and a traditional edible potherb called poke salat. It is common statewide.
Photo of several big bluestem seed heads against a blue sky.
Grasses
All true grasses (species in the grass family)
Missouri has 276 species in the grass family, including well-known crop plants and our native prairie grasses. Distinguishing between the species can be difficult, but it’s easy to learn some basics about the group.
Rope dodder stems
Dodders
Cuscuta spp.
Dodders are easy to identify, even though at first you might not recognize them as plants. These parasitic plants usually look like a hairlike mass of yellow or orange, leafless, wiry, vining stems wrapping around the stems of other plants.
Whorled milkweed flowers.
Milkweeds
Subfamily Asclepiadoideae
Milkweeds are a group of plants that used to have their very own family. Now part of the dogbane family, they’re still a pretty distinctive group.
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!