Field Guide

Common reed is both native and exotic, but it’s the exotic subspecies that has become an invasive problem. Taking over wetlands with its dense stands, it changes the plant and animal communities and even the way the water flows.

Yellow bluestem is a nonnative, aggressive, weedy degrader of pasturelands that escapes cultivation and endangers native habitats. It blooms in Missouri in late June to July, far earlier than our native bluestems.

Dwarf spiderwort is a low-growing perennial with bright magenta, purple, or purplish-blue flowers with three petals arranged in a triangular pattern. It blooms in Ozark woodlands in April and May.

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.

Star of Bethlehem is an introduced exotic plant that makes clusters of bright white flowers in the spring. It reproduces prolifically by forming a multitude of bulbs underground.

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.

Prairie blazing star has an unbranched stalk with many densely crowded, rose-purple flowerheads. It is a signature wildflower of the tallgrass prairie.

Whorled milkweed has rounded clusters of small white flowers. The leaves are soft, threadlike, and grow in whorls from the stem. It occurs in upland prairies and fields.

Slender mountain mint has smooth, square stems, opposite, narrow leaves, and dense heads of 2-lipped white (or lavender) flowers. Aromatic and minty, it can be grown at home in the herb garden, and its leaves used for seasoning food.

Prairie milkweed’s full, rounded clusters of small, delicately purple-tinged flowers set it apart from other prairie milkweeds.