Field Guide

Because each plant disperses a large number of seeds, garlic mustard can outcompete native vegetation for light, moisture, nutrients, soil, and space as it quickly colonizes an area.

Tall bellflower is an abundant native bellflower that is easily identified by its stout, tall habit, short, wheel-shaped, blue corolla, and the curved, purple style that projects beyond the flower.

Introduced as an ornamental, beefsteak plant is native to Asia. It is common in moist or dry wooded bottomlands, open valley pastures, and along trails, railroads, and roadsides. It spreads invasively in our state.

These two species of sweet clover are present all over America. Although they have been planted for forage, as bee plants, and as nitrogen-fixers, white and yellow sweet clover are now classified as invasive for their weediness and the problems they pose for natural habitats.

Wood betony has a tight spiral of tubular, hooded yellow flowers atop a plant adorned with deeply incised, fernlike leaves that are about as attractive as the flowers themselves. In early spring, these leaves have a beautiful wine-red coloration.

There are 23 species of goldenrods in Missouri. They can be hard to identify to species, but as a group, the goldenrods are common and nearly unmistakable.

Blue cardinal flower, or blue lobelia, is a showy, late-blooming native wildflower that grows along streams, ditches, sloughs, and other wet places. It has blue or purple tubular flowers with 2 upper lips and 3 lower lips.

Clasping Venus' looking glass is a single-stemmed plant with purple or blue star-shaped flowers and bluntly toothed, alternate leaves that clasp the stem. It's scattered statewide in a variety of habitats and blooms May-June.

False dragonhead is called "obedient plant" because when you push one of the flowers sideways, it "obediently" stays in place for a while.

Large stands of wind-pollinated giant ragweed commonly form in disturbed areas, causing late-summer misery in the form of hay fever for many Missourians.