Last Updated April 18, 2025
A collection of photographs of Missouri wildflowers discovered on Rachel’s Prairie, a one acre patch of ground with a pond.
Much of what catches the eye of a prairie are the flowers. I often look in wonderment of how the Creation demonstrates this random yet intentional process of claiming ground. While what humans would consider a weed, nature has designed to be just the right thing for the ground. The flowers evolve over time as the soil changes, transformed by the magic of chemistry as plants emerge on harsh ground, releasing chemicals that slowly change the soil, year-to-year, into a richer environment, serving host to a new generation of plants.
Plants also produce fruit. So some of the photos will reflect what to expect in the Fall. What is remarkable, however, is that much of the abundance is too small to see. The minute seeds provide a banquet for birds, no longer needing bird feeders to survive the winter. Mice and voles consume them as well. And a few we can enjoy.
Flowers are posted in the order of their appearance.
Pussy Toes
The first flower to emerge in Spring, aside from the henbits and violets, are pussy toes. While henbits and violets prefer richer soil, pussy toes prefer acid soils. I typically see them on surfaces that generally grow nothing. This part of the county is generally marginal if not bad soil. Coal deposits are quite shallow and the top soil is thin.
These little flowers are often overlooked. Being white and small, they generally do not stand out. But what got my attention was the abundant presence of bees and butterflies. They love them.
In some places the pussy toes congregate, forming what I would call a pussy toe forest.
Sorrels
Another acid soil lover are wood sorrels. I have found sorrels of various hues in both Missouri and Georgia. The Missouri Wildflowers refers to both a violet sorrel, of which is pictured here. But I have found them to be anywhere from white to deep pink in hue. My theory is that it must have something to do with the ground chemistry.
In morning and evening, the flowers appear half-open. They close fully for the night. Their lovely presence is just for a short period of time.
The plant is actually edible. Growing up, we referred to wood sorrel as “sourgrass.” It is quite tasty. Wikipedia also notes that some of the wood sorrels produce edible tubers. Something to double-check.
Wild Blackberry
This little creature is a survivor. I remember as a kid having to battle these blackberries when Dad and I first began clearing out this part of the yard. It was covered over by massive wave of multi-flora rosebushes and blackberries. That was almost 60 years ago. And so it was, the year following the prairie project commencement, I was scouting the edge of the prairie for emerging flowers when I spotted this little thing. Will it produce? After a couple of years, I have not seen any berries. But I have since seen a few more emerge. We will see.
Spring Beauty
This tiny flower covers the forest floor. Colors will vary from white to pink and red veins.
Blue Flox (Sweet William)
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
This may be the most fascinating plant in the adjacent forest.
May Apple
I believe the May Apple was the first wild forest flower that I learned to identify as a child. It readily stands out and is quite unique. There are several large patches in the forest adjacent to Rachel’s Prairie. Something that mystified me ever since I was a teenager was how so many of these plants would emerge and only a few would actually flower. While in college I actually found a May apple fruit. Animals grab these things almost as soon as they ripen, so it is difficult to actually encounter one. I opened it and tasted it. Not a pleasant experience. From what I understand, they need to sit out and ripen to be more palatable.
Common Violet
Our backyard is blanketed by common violets and these wild flowers are almost everywhere, whether it be a domesticated yard, a prairie or the forest floor.
Yellow Star Grass
This is a new one for me. I have only seen one.
Beards Tongue
This innocent looking thing is part of the digitalis family, so it can be poisonous. Would not recommend chewing on it. It is the first “tall” plant to appear on the prairie.
Spiderwort
AKA: Wild Crocus. This flower sort of reminds me of the wild irises that thrive in Alaska’s grasslands. Spiderwort is generously spread over Rachel’s Prairie.
Ox-Eye Daisy
Ox-Eye Daisies start appearing mid-May. They have progressively become more abundant on Rachel’s Prairie. But they are particularly thick along the adjacent roadside.
The trick, of course, is to learn to distinguish between ox-eye daisy, fleabane and white heath aster. Fleabane has a similar color pattern, but more of a wispy pedal arrangement. White Heath aster blooms in late summer and early Fall, while the other two species bloom beginning in May.
What also gets confusing is that ox-eye daisy can appear at different scales: short, small, large and tall.
Calico Aster
This peculiar flower does not appear in the Missouri Wildflower book. Appears that this flower is planted as an annual in America’s flower gardens. Calico asters apparently have some deviation as to the color of the center of the flower. In this example, a rich red tone is presented.
Tall Coreopsis
Where everything that is yellow with a black center is a black-eyed Susan, it is easy to overlook this flower. Not quite as yellow, with a more robust arrangement of pedals, and leaves different in shape.
Bloom appears in July.
Golden Rod
Golden Rod is a pervasive wildflower. It often comes up as one of the top causes of allergies, but it is also confused with its cousin the ragweed. Golden rod is actually quite useful. It is one of those nitrogen-fixing plants that are so vitally needed to enrich the soil. Pollinators love it. I should know, because as a kid our beehive would be worse than useless as the honey became tainted with the sulpheric quality of golden rod. Yet it would be this storehouse of honey that would enable the hive to thrive during the winter months.
The plant goes to seed in late Fall. In fact, it may be one of the last plants to continue blooming in the prairie.
Climbing Bitterroot
Hopefully will get a photo of the blooms, this picture was from late Fall 2023, displaying the bright orange seed.
White Heath Aster
Another of the confusing white flowers with the yellow center, it is not ox-eye daisy and it is not fleabane. One thing to note about white heath aster is that it blooms in the fall. Fleabane is typically blooming in late spring to early summer, ox-eyed daisy through the summer months and white heath aster in the fall.
Interesting story about white heath aster is that it has emerged as the predominant flower in Prairie #2 (another prairie project on our place). The photo you see here was taken in 2018, showing the plant crowding around the fence pole of what was left of my father’s garden. At the time, it was about the only place I saw it growing. It almost always appears along the edge of the yard growing along hedgerows. But it never appears in the middle of the mowed lawn.
Interesting how the seeds from this lonely little plant would make their way across Prairie #2, virtually covering some parts of the area. Like Rachel’s Prairie, Prairie #2 is evolving without the use of herbicides, so wildflowers are competing against established domestic grasses. The first year showed nothing but uncut grass. But this year Prairie #2 has presented only a few wildflowers until numerous white heath asters appeared.
Non-Flowers
Usually the orphan children of “wildflower” identification books are the grasses and sedges that crowd the back of the books. While a bloom may not be readily apparent, they are an important aspect of the prairie, the backdrop on which flowers emerge.
Sericea Lespedeza
Sericea Lespedeza is similar to an invasive form of the plant, so I had this one cleared through the Missouri Department of Conservation. Even so, I will keep an eye on this plant. A generous spread of these plants have appeared on the south bank of the pond, and a few have grown in the prairie (above the east end of the pond).
It may actually be a flowering plant. I noticed that small white flowers appeared on mature plants. The Missouri Wildflowers book shows a sample of the Virginica Lespedeza (slender bush clover), but nothing about sericea.
Resources
- Missouri Wildflowers, by Edgar Denison, 5th Edition, Missouri Department of Conservation, 2001
- Field Guide, Missouri Department of Conservation.
- Plantnet
© Copyright 2024 to Eric Niewoehner