Field Guide

Fire pink is a low, clump-forming perennial with many slender, spreading stems that are sticky from glandular hairs, with open clusters of bright red flowers. This showy native Missouri plant is growing in popularity among home gardeners.

Geocarpon is a tiny, inconspicuous plant found almost exclusively on sandstone glade outcrops. Extremely rare, it is a species of conservation concern. It is related to carnations!

The flower of wake robin, or trillium, has 3 petals and 3 sepals, and 3 leaves that subtend the solitary flower. The petal color varies in this common woodland spring wildflower, but it is most commonly brownish or maroon.

Pinesap is a plant that puts the "wild" in wildflower! It lacks chlorophyll, so its roots connect to fungi underground and absorb nutrients from the fungi.

Deptford pink has straight, strong, narrow stems that bear small clusters of pink flowers with white dots. Common statewide in sunny, open locations such as pastures and roadsides.

Water shield is a long-stemmed aquatic plant with floating oval leaves that resemble small water lily leaves, only without a split. The stems and lower leaf surfaces have a thick, jellylike coating.

Native to Europe and Asia, orange day lily was widely planted by early settlers and has become widely naturalized in North America. The seeds don't mature in Missouri, so all the plants here are spread by root divisions.

This native lily looks a lot like the Asian “tiger lily” that is commonly cultivated in gardens. Michigan lily, however, has leaves mostly in whorls and lacks the round “bulblets” that tiger lily forms in its leaf axils.

Blackberry lily has leaves like an iris, flowers like an Asian lily, and seeds that look like blackberries! Introduced as an ornamental, this self-seeding member of the iris family occurs on bluffs, roadsides, and old homesites.

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.