Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 1 - 10 of 10 results
Photo of pink wild onion flower clusters
Wild Onion
Allium stellatum
Wild onion is edible and is also favored by native-plant gardeners, who enjoy its showy umbels of pink flowers and tolerance of dry, rocky sites. This Ozark species blooms in summer and fall.
Photo of a bull thistle flowerhead.
Bull Thistle
Cirsium vulgare
Bull thistle is a weedy introduction from Europe, found statewide. To tell it from our other thistles, note its stems with spiny-margined wings, and its leaves with the upper surface strongly roughened with stiff, spiny bristles.
Photo of henbit plants with flowers
Henbit
Lamium amplexicaule
In early spring, henbit carpets entire fields with the pinkish-purple of its small flowers. This nonnative mint spreads abundantly but causes few problems. It has shallow roots and fades before crops begin to grow.
Arrowhead plant showing leaves and flowers
Arrowheads
Sagittaria spp.
Arrowheads are aquatic plants with erect, usually arrow-shaped leaves and distinctive three-petaled flowers. They are often called duck potatoes because ducks, geese, and swans relish the tuberlike rootstocks.
Photo of shepherd’s purse plant and flowers
Shepherd's Purse
Capsella bursa-pastoris
Shepherd’s purse is a plant that started in Europe and western Asia and has been introduced nearly worldwide. Like the common dandelion, it has several adaptations that make it a successful colonizer of disturbed soil.
Photo of black mustard flower cluster
Black Mustard
Brassica nigra
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.
Photo of a Queen Anne's lace flower cluster, seen from the top
Queen Anne’s Lace (Wild Carrot)
Daucus carota
Queen Anne’s lace is many things to many people — roadside wildflower, noxious introduced weed, wild edible, medicinal herb, delightful cut flower. In Missouri, it blooms May through October.
Common purslane plant growing on bare, dry soil
Common Purslane
Portulaca oleracea
Purslane can be an aggressive pest in gardens and is one of the worst agricultural weeds in the world. Meanwhile, it’s also a favorite wild vegetable served cooked or raw, and many people cultivate it.
Common chickweed plant in bloom
Common Chickweed
Stellaria media
Common chickweed, native to Europe, has been introduced nearly worldwide and is a familiar garden weed in Missouri. It forms spreading mats on the ground and has small flowers with 5 petals, each deeply lobed making it look like 10.
Red, or purple, clover flower head vied from the side
Red Clover (Purple Clover)
Trifolium pratense
Red clover, or purple clover, is the familiar large, pinkish-purple clover that grows in lawns, pastures, and roadsides statewide. A Eurasian native, it was introduced to North America by the middle 1600s.
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!