Field Guide

One of Missouri's five types of echinacea, pale purple coneflower is distinguished by its white pollen, drooping pink or purple ray flowers, and narrow, tapering leaves. It occurs nearly statewide, except for the Bootheel lowlands.

Missouri has 17 species of tick trefoils, which live in a variety of habitats. Hikers know them well from their chains of hairy little seedpods that stick to clothing like parasites!

Large-flowered gaura is a tall plant whose white flowers turn pinkish as they age. Four petals point upward, then bend back, and 8 stamens droop downward. The flowers look something like small butterflies.

Purple prairie clover is a legume of prairies, glades, and other open places. Its unusual flowering heads ringed with rose-magenta flowers and its attractive foliage add special interest in the home garden.

Sensitive briar is a dainty-looking legume with delicate, twice-compound leaves and flower heads resembling magenta pom-poms. The long, tough stems are covered with tiny thorns that snag your feet as you walk.

Oblong-leaved, or aromatic aster, is well-named. It is notable for its fragrant foliage and its crowded, stalkless, clasping, hairy, narrow, oblong leaves. Like our other native asters, it blooms in late summer and fall.

The antique belief that this plant might repel fleas gives the fleabanes their name. There are more than 170 fleabanes in the genus Erigeron in North America. This one is scattered to common nearly throughout Missouri. Native Americans used this species medicinally for a variety of ailments.

Prairie blazing star has an unbranched stalk with many densely crowded, rose-purple flowerheads. It is a signature wildflower of the tallgrass prairie.

Cardinal flower provides a splash of bright red along streams and rivers, in bottomland forests, in ditches by roads, and in other wet places. It's a long-blooming Missouri native wildflower.

Common milkweed is famous as a food plant for monarch butterflies. It bears curious seedpods bearing seeds that fly on silky parachutes. It's common statewide in a variety of habitats.