Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 1 - 10 of 18 results
Media
Photo of tall bellflower stalk with flowers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Campanula americana
Description
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.
Media
Common dandelion flower head viewed from above
Species Types
Scientific Name
Taraxacum officinale
Description
The common dandelion is a well-known common weed of lawns, roadsides, and other disturbed places. Originally from Europe, it occurs nearly worldwide.
Media
Photo of Florida lettuce flower closeup with syrphid fly
Species Types
Scientific Name
Lactuca floridana
Description
A true lettuce that can be eaten as a cooked or salad green, Florida lettuce has lavender to purplish blue flowers and grows statewide.
Media
Photo of swamp milkweed, three plants with flower clusters.
Species Types
Scientific Name
Asclepias incarnata
Description
Swamp milkweed has pink flower clusters at the tips of its tall stalks. The leaves are opposite, narrow, and up to 6 inches long. It grows in moist bottomland soils.
Media
Photo of purple milkweed flower cluster
Species Types
Scientific Name
Asclepias purpurascens
Description
The flowers of purple milkweed are pale purple to reddish purple to dark purple, with greenish or red tints. The scientific name means “becoming purple”: The flowers start off rather pale and become more intensely purplish as they mature.
Media
Photo of blue cardinal flower flowering stalk
Species Types
Scientific Name
Lobelia siphilitica
Description
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.
Media
Photo of clasping Venus' looking glass, a blue wildflower
Species Types
Scientific Name
Triodanis perfoliata (formerly Specularia perfoliata)
Description
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.
Media
Photo of Indian hemp plant
Species Types
Scientific Name
Apocynum cannabinum
Description
Indian hemp is a shrubby, upright perennial with opposite branches and milky sap. This native plant can be a troublesome weed in crop fields and gardens, but Native Americans used its tough, fibrous stems for rope-making.
Media
Photo of shining blue star flower cluster
Species Types
Scientific Name
Amsonia illustris
Description
Often found on gravelly Ozark streamsides, shining blue star lifts its clusters of showy, light-blue flowers in late spring. A top choice for native wildflower gardening, it is interesting spring, summer, and fall.
Media
Photo of Carolina false dandelion flowerhead.
Species Types
Scientific Name
Pyrrhopappus carolinianus
Description
One of several native plants called dandelions, Carolina false dandelion is an annual with sulphur yellow flowers and puffy seedheads.
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!