Field Guide

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.

Mullein immigrated to America along with Europeans, and with them it has spread across the continent. Its fuzzy, green-gray rosettes of leaves and tall spikes of yellow flowers make it easy to identify.

Moth mullein is a native of Eurasia introduced to our continent in the early 1800s. Since then, it has spread across North America. It’s named because the fuzzy flower, with 2 antennalike stamens, looks something like a moth.

Our most widely distributed early spring flower, spring beauty has 5 white or pink petals with distinct pink veining, and 5 pink anthers. The narrow, bladelike leaves are fleshy. These flowers often grow in abundance, covering a patch of ground with the beauty of spring.

White anemone is a showy native wildflower with interesting, deeply toothed leaves. Often occurring in colonies, it spreads easily (even aggressively) from rhizomes and is sometimes cultivated in wildflower gardens.

In spring, wild hyacinth bears an elongated cluster of pale blue flowers with prominent anthers that sway on stalks up to 2 feet tall.

A low-growing wildflower that can colonize large areas along roadsides, showy evening primrose bears pink or white flowers that seem too large for the vegetation that supports them.

Although the funnel-shaped, 5-lobed flowers look something like the petunias you find at garden centers, our wild petunia is not related to them. This ruellia often has crinkled hairs in 2 narrow, lengthwise bands on opposite sides of the stalk.

Deptford pink has straight, strong, narrow stems that bear small clusters of pink flowers with white dots. Common statewide in sunny, open locations such as pastures and roadsides.

The tiny white flowers of this native plant are not very memorable, but the curious, sticky-feeling whorls of narrow leaves and lightweight, 4-sided stems make cleavers unique. And then there’s the tiny, round, “Velcro” covered balls of the seeds, which “stick tight” to your socks!