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• Plants & Herbs of the Ozarks
Plants & Herbs Index

• Jack-in-the-Pulpit
• Mayapple
• Red Fern
• Trillium

• Fire Pink
• Mock Verbena
• Spring Larkspur
• Yellow Stargrass
• Greek Valerian

• Wood Sorrels
• Hoary Puccoon
• Rue Anemone
• Spring Beauty


Natural Heritage Index

• Fishing
• Hunting
• Camping
• Conservation


• Hills & Hollows
• Rivers & Lakes
• Springs

• Caves
• Rocks & Fossils

• Trees & Shrubs
• Plants & Herbs

• Hill Critters
• Flyin' Critters
• Water Critters
• Snakes & Such

• Forgotten Critters
What makes a wildflower, exactly? Most every plant flowers at some time or another.

Some are woody perennials; others are herbaceous annuals. Most are native to North America; yet quite a few were introduced years ago from Europe.

Plant classification can be hard.

Suffice it to say, if it is a plant, if it flowers, and it has significance to the Ozarks, sooner or later, that plant should end up here.


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An Ozark Plant List:

Gentian (Jenshun) Gentiana sp.
May Apple Podophyllum peltatum
Lady Slipper Cypripedium sp.
Hoarhound Marrubian vulgare
Catnip Nepeta sp.
Mullen Verbascum thapsus
Poke-root Phytolacca americana
Plantain Plantago major
Ginseng Panax quinquefolius
Sarsaparilla Aralia nudicaulis


Yellow Root Xanthorhiza simplicissima

Horsemint Monarda didyma, M. fistulosa

Black & White Snake Root Eupatorium sp.

American Wisteria Wisteria frutescens

Bittersweet Celastrus scandens
Poison Ivy Toxicodendron radicans
Wild Licorice Glycyrrhiza lepidota
04/15/09, Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium). Photo credit, J. Heston. Location: Mincy-Drury Conservation Area, Taney County, Missouri.
Chick Allen (root digger) says...

I am the fourth generation [to be] born and raised in the Ozarks. My ancestors came here in 1836. [The] herbs and remedies [were] handed down [to us] from the Indians. Most of us natives have some Indian blood in us. The white man learned how to use these herbs and roots from the Indians.

Many a life in the early frontier days was saved with these remedies.

In the spring, or about May First, people gathered enough roots and herbs to do them until the next spring. The springtime was a happy celebration of "Root Digging Days." It was a time to shed their red underwear and to get their corn liquor stills running — because all good medicines contained some corn whiskey for a preservative.

— Forward, Allen, Chick with Evelyn Fullerton, Root Digger, May 1974.