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.

Pencil flower is small and often overlooked. It has wiry stems, long, bristly hairs, three-parted leaves, and orangish-yellow flowers.

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.

The flowers of purple milkweed are pale purple to reddish purple to dark purple, with greenish or red tints. The scientific name means “becoming purple”: The flowers start off rather pale and become more intensely purplish as they mature.

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.

There are several members of the aster family that look something like common dandelions. But unlike the familiar lawn weed, two-flowered Cynthia is a native Missouri wildflower.

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.