Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Asclepias purpurascens
Description
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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Apocynum cannabinum
Description
Indian hemp is a shrubby, upright perennial with opposite branches and milky sap. This native plant can be a troublesome weed in crop fields and gardens, but Native Americans used its tough, fibrous stems for rope-making.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Euphorbia commutata
Description
Conspicuous in early spring, wood spurge is a dainty species with loose clusters of small, light green flowers. Look for it in woods, valleys, streamsides, and waste areas in Ozark landscapes.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Matelea decipiens
Description
The brown, starlike, spreading flowers of climbing milkweed differ from those of other milkweeds, but milky sap, warty pods with silk-tasseled seeds, and the structures in the center of the flowers show its true alliance.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Asclepias quadrifolia
Description
One of our earliest blooming milkweeds, fourleaf milkweed bears round clusters of pink or cream-colored flowers. As the common names suggest, at least some of the leaves are arranged in whorls of 4.
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Scientific Name
Euphorbia corollata
Description
With widespread sprays of small white flowers, flowering spurge looks a lot like the "baby's breath" so popular with florists. Each little "flower" has 5 white false petals surrounding a cup of tiny yellow male flowers and a single female flower.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Subfamily Asclepiadoideae
Description
Milkweeds are a group of plants that used to have their very own family. Now part of the dogbane family, they’re still a pretty distinctive group.
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!