Field Guide

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.

Marginal shield fern is an evergreen fern with scaly rhizomes and leaf stalks. It grows in bouquet-like clusters on shaded ledges of sandstone bluffs and rock outcrops.

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.

Maidenhair ferns are distinctive and beautiful. Their leaflet veins divide by twos over and over, forming a fan pattern.

Christmas fern is one of the most common ferns in Missouri woodlands. Its leathery leaves are evergreen, and pioneers used it for making Christmas wreaths.

Lowland brittle fern, also called southern fragile fern, is an easily recognized species. It’s a common springtime sight in moist forest soils.

Broad beech fern has broadly triangular leaves that tilt backward from their long, upright stalks. Wings of leafy tissue connect the main leaf lobes along the main axis, and the bottommost lobes usually point downward.

The common dandelion is a well-known common weed of lawns, roadsides, and other disturbed places. Originally from Europe, it occurs nearly worldwide.

Lamb’s quarters won’t win any beauty contests for its flowers, but it merits an award for being both a common garden weed as well as a nutritious leafy green valued around the world.

Common ragweed is instantly recognizable by its ornate, 2–3 times pinnately lobed, hairy leaves. You’ve probably seen it many times and wondered what it was.