Field Guide

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants

Showing 71 - 80 of 165 results
Media
Photo of horse nettle flowers and leaves
Species Types
Scientific Name
Solanum carolinense
Description
Horse nettle is a native perennial with spiny stems and leaves, white to purplish flowers, and toxic fruits that look like tiny yellow tomatoes. It does well in disturbed habitats, and many people consider it a weed.
Media
Photo of horseweed flowers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Conyza canadensis (formerly Erigeron canadensis)
Description
Horseweed looks something like a goldenrod, except that the tiny composite flowers are not yellow. Instead, they are cream-colored and rather drab. In Missouri, this plant is especially associated with disturbed habitats and is a troublesome crop weed.
Media
Photo of ox-eye daisies in a grassy field
Species Types
Scientific Name
Leucanthemum vulgare (formerly Chrysanthemum leucanthemum)
Description
Ox-eye daisy, though familiar, is not native to North America. It was introduced long ago from Eurasia. Common in grassy uplands, pastures, fencerows, and roadsides, it can colonize aggressively in the garden.
Media
Photo of tickseed coreopsis flowerhead
Species Types
Scientific Name
Coreopsis lanceolata
Description
Native to Ozark glades and prairies, tickseed coreopsis has long been appreciated as a hardy garden perennial. Because of its popularity, it has escaped from cultivation and now occurs statewide.
Media
Photo of white heath aster flowers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Symphyotrichum pilosum (formerly Aster pilosus)
Description
White heath aster is one of Missouri's most widespread and weedy native asters. It grows in uplands, bottomlands, and nearly all habitats in between. It has a shrubby, wide-branching habit, and the stem leaves are thin and needlelike.
Media
Photo of leaf cup flower
Species Types
Scientific Name
Polymnia canadensis
Description
Leaf cup is named for the leafy appendages that wrap around the stem at the bases of the opposite leaves. Part of the sunflower family, leaf cup has about 8 white ray florets surrounding yellow disk florets.
Media
Photo of purple meadow parsnip foliage and flowers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Thaspium trifoliatum
Description
One of our more challenging plants to identify, meadow parsnip looks an awful lot like golden Alexanders. But you can do it! Look closely at the flower clusters and at the edges of the leaves, and then check the seeds.
Media
Photo of common golden Alexanders plant with flowers
Species Types
Scientific Name
Zizia aurea
Description
Named for its resemblance to a European herb that was popular in Medieval times, golden Alexanders is a native Missouri wildflower with bright yellow flowers arranged in umbrella-like clusters.
Media
Photo of a Queen Anne's lace flower cluster, seen from the top
Species Types
Scientific Name
Daucus carota
Description
Queen Anne’s lace is many things to many people — roadside wildflower, noxious introduced weed, wild edible, medicinal herb, delightful cut flower. In Missouri, it blooms May through October.
Media
Caucasian bluestem seed head
Species Types
Scientific Name
Bothriochloa bladhii
Description
Causasian bluestem and the closely related yellow bluestem are both aggressive, weedy degraders of pasturelands that escape cultivation and endanger native habitats. Learn more about these Old World grasses, and please don’t plant them!
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!