Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Asplenium platyneuron
Description
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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Ophioglossum spp.
Description
Four species of adder’s tongue ferns occur in Missouri. They don’t look like typical ferns. They have spoon-shaped leaves and an upright spore-bearing stalk.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Vernonia baldwinii
Description
Ironweeds are tough, grayish-green, branching plants known for their fluffy-looking clusters of reddish-purple florets. They are a familiar sight on roadsides and pastures. Identify western ironweed by the bracts at the base of the flowerheads.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Silene virginica
Description
Fire pink is a low, clump-forming perennial with many slender, spreading stems that are sticky from glandular hairs, with open clusters of bright red flowers. This showy native Missouri plant is growing in popularity among home gardeners.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Torilis arvensis
Description
Hedge parsley is an introduced plant that looks a lot like parsley. It was first collected in Missouri in 1909 and has become much more abundant in recent decades as it spreads along roadsides and railroads.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Claytonia virginica
Description
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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Camassia scilloides
Description
In spring, wild hyacinth bears an elongated cluster of pale blue flowers with prominent anthers that sway on stalks up to 2 feet tall.
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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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Ageratina altissima (formerly Eupatorium rugosum)
Description
White snakeroot looks very similar to thoroughworts, but it has triangular leaf blades that are more broadly angled or rounded at the base. White snakeroot is common statewide. It’s a toxic plant if eaten, so it’s good to be able to identify it.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Eupatorium perfoliatum
Description
American, or common boneset has small, white flowerheads in flat-topped clusters at the top of the plant. The leaves are hairy, narrowly triangular, and in opposite pairs fused around the stem.
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!