Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 1 - 10 of 36 results
Photo of an Engelmann’s adder’s tongue with a black background
Adder's Tongues
Ophioglossum spp.
Four species of adder’s tongue ferns occur in Missouri. They don’t look like typical ferns. They have spoon-shaped leaves and an upright spore-bearing stalk.
Western ironweed flowerhead in bloom
Western Ironweed (Baldwin's Ironweed)
Vernonia baldwinii
Ironweeds are tough, grayish-green, branching plants known for their fluffy-looking clusters of reddish-purple florets. They are a familiar sight on roadsides and pastures. Identify western ironweed by the bracts at the base of the flowerheads.
American, or common boneset, flower clusters and upper stem leaves
American Boneset (Common Boneset)
Eupatorium perfoliatum
American, or common boneset has small, white flowerheads in flat-topped clusters at the top of the plant. The leaves are hairy, narrowly triangular, and in opposite pairs fused around the stem.
Photo of a tall thoroughwort plant in bloom.
Tall Thoroughwort (Tall Boneset)
Eupatorium altissimum
A stout perennial that can grow to 6 feet tall, tall thoroughwort is a member of the sunflower family that has dull white flowers and distinctive leaves that are opposite, slender, very short-stalked, and with three quite noticeable veins.
Photo of many blooming ashy sunflower plants, showing gray-green leaves.
Sunflowers
Helianthus spp.
Most people recognize sunflowers when they see them, with their bright yellow ray flowers and rather flattened center of dark disk flowers. There are 16 species of Helianthus in Missouri.
Eastern figwort flowers
Eastern Figwort (Carpenter's Square)
Scrophularia marilandica
Eastern figwort occurs statewide in rich woods, woodland borders, and bottomlands. It’s usually 2-5 feet high, has square stems and lance-shaped, toothed leaves, and bears spreading clusters of small, green scoop-shaped flowers with brown petal lobes.
Common Cocklebur
Xanthium strumarium
Common cocklebur occurs statewide in open, disturbed, lowland habitats. It is a common weed in crop fields. It has wide, rough, coarsely toothed leaves; stout, often purple-speckled stems; and characteristic burs with hooked spines.
Virginia knotweed, young plant with two leaves showing characteristic brownish markings
Virginia Knotweed (Jumpseed)
Persicaria virginiana (formerly Polygonum virginianum)
Virginia knotweed, or jumpseed, is common yet rarely contemplated. It might be most eye-catching in spring, when its new, oval leaves are marked with brownish Vs. In summer, it blooms with tiny, teardrop-shaped white flowers on wandlike stems.
Closeup of single flowerhead of a New World aster with yellow disk florets and lavender ray florets
New World Asters (American Asters)
Symphyotrichum spp. (formerly Aster spp.)
Missouri has 24 species of New World asters in genus Symphyotrichum. Most have purple or white ray flowers and yellow disk flowers that turn reddish over time. Most bloom in late summer and fall.
Rope dodder stems
Dodders
Cuscuta spp.
Dodders are easy to identify, even though at first you might not recognize them as plants. These parasitic plants usually look like a hairlike mass of yellow or orange, leafless, wiry, vining stems wrapping around the stems of other plants.
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!