Field Guide

Rough blazing star is fairly common and scattered nearly statewide. To distinguish between Missouri’s nine species in the genus Liatris, start by noting details of the flower structure. It’s not hard when you know what to look for.

Tall thistle is a native thistle that can grow to be 10 feet tall! To identify it, notice its leaves, which are unlobed (though they may be wavy or have only shallow, broad lobes), are felty-hairy beneath, and have prickles only along the edges.

A member of the pink or carnation family, starry campion has fringed, white petals that give it a starry appearance. It blooms from June to September in dry, wooded uplands and slopes.

Of Missouri’s six rosinweeds, prairie dock is identified by its large, leathery, unlobed leaves, which are nearly all in a basal whorl. Only a few small leaves grow on the stem.

The purplish or brownish disk florets of purple-headed sneezeweed set it apart from our other sneezeweeds, whose centers are yellow. Look for it in moist, open areas, mostly in the southern half of the state.

A biennial plant with bristly hairs and usually with single stems, viper’s bugloss can grow 2½ feet tall. The flowers are pink in bud, blue to ultramarine later. The protruding stamens are pink.

You may not recognize elephant’s foot as a member of the daisy or sunflower family because it lacks petal-like ray florets. Also, it has unusual, doubly compound flower clusters. And how did it get its name, anyway?

Our weediest sneezeweed, bitterweed arrived in Missouri in the late 1800s from its home range in Texas and Louisiana. Like our other heleniums, it has domed disks and yellow, fan-shaped, notched ray florets. Unlike them, the leaves are narrowly linear.

Autumn sneezeweed is a late-blooming perennial with conspicuously winged stems. The flowerheads have yellow, domed disks. The ray flowers are fan-shaped, yellow, and notched.

White heath aster is one of Missouri's most widespread and weedy native asters. It grows in uplands, bottomlands, and nearly all habitats in between. It has a shrubby, wide-branching habit, and the stem leaves are thin and needlelike.