How to Identify Missouri's Native Plants
When Lady Bird Johnson pressured Congress to pass the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, she had no idea how profound her effort would turn out to be. States used the legislation as an excuse to weed out non-indigenous plants and grasses, even though the bill was designed to thin out an overabundance of billboards. The residents of Missouri, the Show Me state, were delighted to see their native plants return. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Seek out purple flowers with cream-colored centers and you'll have stumbled upon the basket flower (Centaurea americana). These annuals bloom in May and stick around until August, so take advantage of this long growing period to locate them. If you think you may be confusing them with other species of the same color, check them out at night; basket flowers are one of the few Missouri flowers that close their petals from dusk to dawn.
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Spot brilliant fuschia-colored berries on a Missouri native and you probably discovered the American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana). This colorful plant is easy to identify without berries, too, since summer temperatures spur small pink flowers that stick around until October. Missouri's climate is mild enough to keep the berries on the bushes until late November so expect to find birds and small mammals dining on them well into fall.
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Look for hanging clusters of yellow and orange fruit to identify the American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens). Emerging from woody vines that sprawl across bushes and fences in vertical and horizontal directions, bittersweet fruit splits open to reveal bright red/orange seeds.
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Follow quail, grouse, blue jays, squirrels and deer to the nearest hazelnut (Corylus americana), a multi-stemmed shrub that sprouts 3-inch-long, male yellow-brown catkins every spring. The female flowers are less conspicuous, but when she produces edible nuts in summer, she outshines the male. You'll know you've arrived at a hazelnut grove when you spot orange, rose, purplish red, yellow and green blooms on the same shrub at summer's end.
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Encounter small shrubs with masses of white and pink flowers protruding from spikes between June and September and you've probably happened upon American jointweed (Polygonella americana). Adjacent fields may be filled with colorful daisy-like plants known as coneflowers in these color mixes: black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) and bright purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). And, yes, these are the source of homeopathic flu prevention medicines.
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Identify the American snowbell (Styrax americana) by fragrant, white, bell-shaped flowers with reflexed petals drooping from the plant root in late spring. Or, turn your attention to multiple species of aster that dot the Missouri countryside. Aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius) is easy to spot: this late-blooming plant is lavished with fragrant blue-purple flowers that stick around until fall.
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Differentiate between arrow arum (Peltandra virginica) and arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum) by comparing leaves. The first sports green, tropical-looking 18-inch leaves while arrowwood has shorter, glossier leaves that turn yellow, orange or red each fall. See black seeds on the ground late in the year? You've happened upon the Arrow arum.
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Find a Missouri plant guide to learn more about 36 other species identified by botanists. Address questions to the Missouri Native Plant Society, P.O. Box 20073, St. Louis, MO 63144-0073.
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References
- Photo Credit Missouri Herbarium
