Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 1 - 10 of 137 results
Photo of yellow violet plant with flower
Yellow Violet
Viola pubescens (formerly V. pensylvanica)
The yellow violet is Missouri's only all-yellow violet. This native wildflower is less common than violet violets. Look for it in low woods, rich slopes, and wooded floodplains.
Photo of small bluet flower showing purplish center
Small Bluet (Tiny Bluet)
Houstonia pusilla (H. minima; Hedyotis crassifolia)
Small bluet is a mat-forming winter annual that can color entire lawns blue with its tiny flowers. You can start learning to recognize it by noting the reddish-purple color at the center of the blue-violet flowers.
Photo of violet wood sorrel plant with flowers
Violet Wood Sorrel
Oxalis violacea
Missouri has one introduced and four native wood sorrels. Violet wood sorrel is the only one that has magenta or lavender flowers.
Image of Johnny-jump-up.
Johnny-Jump-Up (Field Pansy)
Viola bicolor
Johnny-jump-up is a flat-faced violet whose small flowers are a washed-out blue or violet with a very light yellow or white center. Look for it in fields, meadows, glades, rights-of-way, disturbed sites, and possibly your front lawn.
Photo of common scouring rush, many stems in a colony
Horsetails (Scouring Rushes)
Equisetum (3 spp. in Missouri)
Horsetails, or scouring rushes, are in the genus Equisetum. They’re easy to recognize with their jointed, hollow stems. Like ferns, they reproduce via spores instead of flowers and seeds.
Photo of an ebony spleenwort plant growing among moss and fallen leaves
Ebony Spleenwort
Asplenium platyneuron
Ebony spleenwort is a common forest-floor fern with wiry, shiny, dark brown leaf stalks and a ladderlike series of dark green, narrowly oblong leaflets.
Photo of purple cliff brake growing from a rock crevice, with a hand propping up one of the fronds
Purple Cliff Brake
Pellaea atropurpurea
Purple cliff brake is a fern that grows from crevices in limestone and dolomite rocks, or in rocky soils near them. Its leathery, blue-gray leaflets, which are oval to lance-shaped, make the fronds seem not very fernlike.
Photo of smooth cliff brake showing leaves and leaflets
Smooth Cliff Brake
Pellaea glabella
Smooth cliff brake is almost always seen growing out of an exposed limestone or dolomite bluff or rock. Its fronds, with blue-gray, lance-shaped, ovate, or oblong leaflets, are not very fernlike.
Photo of fire pink flowers
Fire Pink
Silene virginica
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.
Photo of glade coneflower flowerhead showing yellow pollen
Glade Coneflower
Echinacea simulata
One of Missouri’s five types of echinaceas, glade coneflower is distinguished by its yellow pollen, drooping pink or purple ray flowers, and narrow, tapering leaves. Look for it in the eastern Ozarks, and at native plant nurseries!
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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!