Field Guide

A common component of high-quality upland prairie, American feverfew, or wild quinine, is a native wildflower that was used to treat fevers or malaria. It's in the composite family.

Indian physic, or American ipecac, is a leafy plant that can cover entire hills in the Ozarks. Native Americans used it as an emetic for internal cleansing, a widespread ceremonial custom.

False garlic looks like a wild garlic or onion plant, but it doesn’t smell like one. The flowers can be white, yellowish, or greenish, and they appear in spring and sometimes also fall.

Plainleaf pussytoes, named for its fuzzy flower heads, is one of the few flowering plants in Missouri that grows well in dry and shaded areas. It’s also an indicator of acid soils.

Bastard, or false toadflax is one of the hundreds of wildflowers that bejewel our native prairies. A perennial herb with yellowish-green foliage and smooth, upright stems, it grows and flowers under the hottest conditions.

At first glance, you might overlook corn salad, except for the large colonies it often forms. The young leaves can be eaten as a salad green, hence the name.

One of Missouri's five types of echinacea, pale purple coneflower is distinguished by its white pollen, drooping pink or purple ray flowers, and narrow, tapering leaves. It occurs nearly statewide, except for the Bootheel lowlands.

Missouri has 17 species of tick trefoils, which live in a variety of habitats. Hikers know them well from their chains of hairy little seedpods that stick to clothing like parasites!

Large-flowered gaura is a tall plant whose white flowers turn pinkish as they age. Four petals point upward, then bend back, and 8 stamens droop downward. The flowers look something like small butterflies.

Purple prairie clover is a legume of prairies, glades, and other open places. Its unusual flowering heads ringed with rose-magenta flowers and its attractive foliage add special interest in the home garden.