Field Guide

Spring branches and streams in the Ozarks are decorated with large colonies of these plants, which can grow like thick green garlands in the water. It has a long history of use as a salad green, and it is cultivated to sell to gourmet cooks. If you collect watercress from the wild, make sure to wash it thoroughly.

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.

Square, unbranching stems, opposite leaves, two-lipped flowers, and a mild minty fragrance are clues Ohio horsemint is in the mint family. Tight, rounded flower clusters are stacked atop one another at the stem tips.

A square-stemmed plant with opposite leaves, self-heal bears two-lipped blue, lavender, or violet flowers in a cylindrical head. We have two varieties of self-heal in Missouri, one native and one introduced.

Also called horsemint and wild bergamot, Bradbury beebalm is a showy, fragrant plant that is a favorite of native plant gardeners. It’s also a favorite of Missouri’s butterflies!

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.

Toothwort is a member of the mustard family that blooms March–May in wooded slopes and valleys. The sharply toothed, deeply lobed leaves are distinctive. The bright white, 4-petaled flowers shine at forest visitors.

Jerusalem artichoke deserves a better common name. This tall native sunflower has edible tubers and great crop potential, but it has never been very big commercially. Fortunately, we can enjoy it for free in nature.

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.