Field Guide

Wild and cultivated ginseng produce an annual crop in the United States and Canada valued in excess of $25 million, but overzealous collection is causing serious concern about the survival of American ginseng in the forest ecosystem.

In summer, you’re almost guaranteed to see big colonies of crown vetch along Missouri's highways. This weedy nonnative plant stabilizes the dirt after road construction but degrades our natural ecosystems.

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.

Rue anemone is a common and beloved spring wildflower. It blooms March–June. It and other woodland wildflowers require a forest habitat to survive, so they depend on the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees that surround them.

The small, cloverlike flowering heads and trifoliate leaves of black medick are clues that this plant is in the Fabaceae, the bean or pea family. An introduced, weedy species, it is closely related to alfalfa.

Running buffalo clover spreads by sending out long, creeping runners. Now endangered, this native perennial once flourished along streams and buffalo trails throughout the grasslands of the eastern and central United States.

The smooth, finely divided, fernlike foliage of pale corydalis is similar to that of the related wildflower Dutchman’s breeches. But in pale corydalis, the small yellow flowers appear tubelike and lipped.

Wild strawberry is one of the parents of the cultivated strawberry and is one of our prized native wild edibles. It’s also a valuable food for innumerable animals, and it’s attractive in native wildflower gardens.

As pretty as this wildflower is, the common name “Jacob’s Ladder” comes from its ladderlike leaves, which made people think of the story from Genesis in which Jacob dreams of a ladder reaching up to heaven.

Bird’s-foot trefoil forms low patches of bright yellow flowers along roadsides, having been planted to stabilize soil after road construction. Up close, it clearly has pea flowers. The leaves are cloverlike, with two leafy stipules at the base of each.