Field Guide

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.

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.

Purple cliff brake is a fern that grows from crevices in limestone and dolomite rocks, or in rocky soils near them. Its leathery, blue-gray leaflets, which are oval to lance-shaped, make the fronds seem not very fernlike.

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.

Bracken is a fern found nearly worldwide. Its 2–3 times compound leaves are triangular in outline and arise singly from the underground creeping rhizome.

Hairy lip fern is a hairy, perennial fern that usually grows on rock crevices and ledges. The spore clusters form on the bottom edge of the leaflets and are protected by the curled-under leaf edge.

Bur cucumber is a nonwoody, native, annual vine common in low, moist soils. It can spread across an area 20 feet wide, covering the ground and nearby shrubs. Note its lobed, gourd-family leaves, curly green tendrils, clusters of prickly, green, oval fruits, and 5-lobed, cream-colored flowers.

Violets, as a group, are fairly easy to identify, with their colorful five-petaled “faces” so welcome in springtime. Missouri has 17 species, and some are confusingly similar. This page introduces them as a group.

The leaf blades of cleft violet are highly variable, and the plant produces differently shaped leaves as the season progresses. Midseason leaves have a broad central lobe flanked by additional lobes toward the base.