Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 301 - 310 of 318 results
Media
White clover flowerhead blooming against a background of clover foliage
Species Types
Scientific Name
Trifolium repens
Description
White clover is the familiar white-flowering clover that grows in lawns, pastures, and roadsides statewide. A Eurasian native, it was widespread in North America by the middle 1700s.
Media
Yellow ironweed blooming flowerhead
Species Types
Scientific Name
Verbesina alternifolia (syn. Actinomeris alternifolia)
Description
Yellow ironweed is a tall native perennial wildflower. Its yellow petal-like rays droop down, making the many flowerheads look like small, ragged sunflowers. The stems are winged, especially toward the bottom of the plant.
Media
Longleaf mud plantain plants in bloom with purple flowers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Heteranthera spp.
Description
Mud plantains have glossy, rounded or kidney-shaped leaves and purple or white flowers that have six petal lobes. One petal lobe points downward. They typically grow as emergent aquatic shoreline plants.
Media
Vertical image closeup of sweet flag spadix
Species Types
Scientific Name
Acorus calamus (syn. A. calamus var. calamus)
Description
At a glance, the upright sword-shaped leaves of sweet flag make it resemble cattails. Like them, sweet flag lives in wet soils. But the flower heads are distinctive, and details of the leaves set them apart, too.
Media
Tall burhead inflorescence with blooming flower and several maturing seed clusters
Species Types
Scientific Name
Echinodorus berteroi
Description
A plant of shorelines and shallow water, tall burhead has clusters of beaked seeds that develop in the fall. Hundreds of these spiny seed heads, held in clusters above the water, make it distinctive.
Media
Three water plantains blooming in a wetland or pond edge habitat
Species Types
Scientific Name
Alisma spp.
Description
With their whorl of oval leaves with thick, ridged stems, water plantains look like giant versions of the plantains that commonly appear in yards. Water plantains are water-edge plants that bear large, branching stalks of tiny white flowers.
Media
Photo of blue grama grass clump growing in habitat
Species Types
Scientific Name
Bouteloua gracilis
Description
Blue grama is a native perennial warm-season short grass that forms dense clumps. The flowering stems are 6–12 inches tall, and the short, curving, one-sided seed head resembles an eyebrow. In Missouri, it occurs mostly in our northwestern loess hill prairies.
Media
Bottlebrush grass flowerhead showing spikelets spreading away from main axis
Species Types
Scientific Name
Elymus hystrix
Description
Bottlebrush grass is a native perennial, tuft-forming wild rye that typically grows in woodlands. The widely spaced spikelets spread away at a right angle from the main flowering stem.
Media
Buffalo grass with male flowering stalks
Species Types
Scientific Name
Buchloe dactyloides
Description
Buffalo grass is a native perennial warm-season short grass that creeps widely by runners and forms dense mats. As a native, it occurs in the prairies in far northwest Missouri, but it now occurs elsewhere in the state and has become popular as a lawn grass.
Species Types
Scientific Name
Bromus pubescens (formerly B. purgans)
Description
Several species of brome grasses are found in Missouri. Canada brome, or hairy woodland brome, is one of the few that are native. It grows to 4 feet high, and its open flower clusters have drooping spikelets.
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!