Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Buchnera americana
Description
American bluehearts is a single or few-stalked wildflower of prairies and glades. It has distinctive, showy purple flowers that turn black as they age.
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Scientific Name
Teucrium canadense
Description
Like most other mints, American germander has square stems, opposite leaves, and two-lobed flowers. The unusual configuration of the corolla lobes is the key identifying characteristic.
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Scientific Name
Perilla frutescens
Description
Introduced as an ornamental, beefsteak plant is native to Asia. It is common in moist or dry wooded bottomlands, open valley pastures, and along trails, railroads, and roadsides. It spreads invasively in our state.
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Scientific Name
Brassica nigra
Description
Next time you breeze past weedy black mustard on the highway or spot it in a fallow field, think of how important this and other mustards are to the world economy – and to your dinner table.
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Scientific Name
Liatris spp.
Description
Missouri boasts nine native species of blazing stars, or gayfeathers, in genus Liatris. These showy, upright, unbranching spikes of magenta-pink wildflowers bloom in sunny habitats.
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Scientific Name
Lobelia siphilitica
Description
Blue cardinal flower, or blue lobelia, is a showy, late-blooming native wildflower that grows along streams, ditches, sloughs, and other wet places. It has blue or purple tubular flowers with 2 upper lips and 3 lower lips.
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Scientific Name
Salvia azurea
Description
Blue sage is easily identified by its wandlike clusters of sky-blue, two-lipped wildflowers. It blooms July–September in prairies, roadsides, and other open habitats.
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Scientific Name
Verbena hastata
Description
Blue vervain is a tall, slender, erect perennial with branching stems and rough hairs. Its tubular flowers are clustered in many terminal spikes, and can be deep purple, violet, light lavender, or rarely white.
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Scientific Name
Lobelia cardinalis
Description
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.
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Scientific Name
Delphinium carolinianum
Description
Small blue, lavender, or white flowers shaped like cornucopias dance along the tall stems of this Carolina larkspur, which grows in prairies and grasslands.
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!