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.

Our most widely distributed early spring flower, spring beauty has 5 white or pink petals with distinct pink veining, and 5 pink anthers. The narrow, bladelike leaves are fleshy. These flowers often grow in abundance, covering a patch of ground with the beauty of spring.

Bloodroot’s pure white petals are even more remarkable given the plant’s bright red sap. This feature, plus the unique leaf shape, make this early spring wildflower easy to identify.

In spring, wild hyacinth bears an elongated cluster of pale blue flowers with prominent anthers that sway on stalks up to 2 feet tall.

Although the funnel-shaped, 5-lobed flowers look something like the petunias you find at garden centers, our wild petunia is not related to them. This ruellia often has crinkled hairs in 2 narrow, lengthwise bands on opposite sides of the stalk.

White dogtooth violet, or white trout lily, is a small, early blooming lily that lives in wooded areas. Its flowers are white and its narrow leaves are purplish or brownish mottled. They are often found as a colony of blade-shaped, green-and-brown-mottled leaves poking out of the earth in spring, with only a few producing flowers.

The showy, bright yellow flowers of celandine poppy really stand out in the shady woods and valleys where this plant grows. You should consider this species when you are planting a shade garden!

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.

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.

The largest trillium in Missouri has white petals, and when it blooms in spring, the flowers droop or hang sideways. Look for white wake robin in eastern and east-central Missouri, and in counties bordering the Missouri River.