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Common milkweed's flowers arise from leaf axils, are 2.5-5" wide, hemispherical, and covered with typical 1/2" wide milkweed flowers ranging from light pink to reddish-purple; the petals, reflexed back around the base of the flower are darker than the hoods.

Asclepias

Asclepias syriaca

common milkweed [Blooms: Jun-Aug]

Butterfly weed has clusters of 8-25 flowers, in various shades of orange with touches of yellow or red, that arise from the stems and leaf axils. Individual flowers have a typical milkweed morphology, with the petals reflexed backwards over the flower stalk and the complex corona protruding. The central column of the corona in A. tuberosa is always yellow regardless of the shade of the remainder of the flower. This is the only Illinois milkweed with orange flowers and has narrower leaves than all other local milkweeds except whorled milkweed (A. verticillata, which has white flowers).

Asclepias

Asclepias tuberosa

butterfly milkweed [Blooms: Jun-Sep]

Spanish needles flowers are 1/2" long and 1/4" across; they occur individually on the end of long peduncles. Each flower has 3-5 (sometimes zero) ovoid, yellow, petal-like ray florets around 12-27 yellow, tubular disc florets, each with five small lobes at their tips, 5 stamens, and a bifurcated style. Even in full bloom, the flowers look like buds. After fertilization, each flower produces needle-like, brown, four-angled, barbed seeds, each 1/2-3/4" long, that radiate in all directions from the base of the old flower.

Bidens

Bidens bipinnata

Spanish needles [Blooms: Aug-Sep]

Nodding bur-marigold's flowers usually have eight ray florets ("petals") that are elliptical; the flower is 1-2" across with the flower stem arising from leaf axil. Flowers nod down with age. The phyllaries at the base of the flowers are in two series — the outer phyllaries are of variable length but narrow, curly, and green; the inner phyllaries are almond shaped, as wide as the petals, and pale yellow-green.

Bidens

Bidens cernua

nodding bur-marigold [Blooms: Aug-Oct]

The flowers of devil's beggars-tick consist only of disc florets. The base of the flower is surrounded by 6-10 (usually eight) long phyllaries that extend beyond the flower's edge.

Bidens

Bidens frondosa

devil's beggar-tick [Blooms: Aug-Oct]

Top — Crowned beggar-tick's (Bidens trichosperma) flowers in frontal view. Bottom — about twelve narrow, twisted phyllaries lie below the yellow flower sepals at the top of the stem.

Bidens

Bidens trichosperma

crowned beggar-tick [Blooms: Sep-Oct]

Hairy wood mint flowers consist of (from back to front) a tubular, stubby calyx with five long teeth and margins with very long, soft white hairs; a white or light purple tubular corolla with an unlobed upper lip, hairy on the outer surface; and a three lobed lower lip with scattered purple dots. Two stamens and a pistil with a bifurcated stigma protrude. Upper right — an ant for scale on a hairy wood mint flower.

Blephilia

Blephilia hirsuta

hairy wood mint [Blooms: Jun-Aug]

Butterfly-bush has flowers in a elongate cluster (panicle); each flower is trumpet-shaped with an orange center, and the flared end is split into four lobes.

Buddleja

Buddleja davidii

butterfly-bush [Blooms: Aug-Sep]

Cutleaf toothwort's flowers are ~1/2" across when fully open; the flowers arise from a slender pedicel as long as the flower, 4 green or purple bluntly-pointed sepals <1/3 the length of the petals, four lavender-white petals, six stamens with yellow anthers, and a single pistil with a flat, discoid stigma.

Cardamine

Cardamine concatenata

cutleaf toothwort [Blooms: Apr-May]

Northern catalpa's inflorescence is a pyramidal panicle with 10-30 flowers. Individual flowers are large (~2" across) and trumpet-shaped with two lobes, bright white with purple lines leading towards the corolla's center; two yellow-orange spots are present on the lower lateral edges of the corolla's opening. Two fertile and three sterile stamens, and a single, white style with a bifurcated stigma are present.

Catalpa

Catalpa speciosa

Northern catalpa [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Buttonbush is a shrub with golfball-sized white inflorescences studded with long, protruding styles — distinctive and unmistakable. Flowering stalks produce 1-3 spherical flowerheads 3/4-1.5" across completely covered with 100-200 small white flowers. Individual flowers are small (1/3" long), white, with four (sometimes five) lobes at the apex; stamens are short while the styles are very long (~3/8"), yellow-tipped, and projecting well beyond the corolla. Maturing seedheads are bright red, but turn brown when fully ripe.

Cephalanthus

Cephalanthus occidentalis

buttonbush [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Mouse-ear chickweed has stems up to 1.5' long with long, spreading hairs; the flower stalks and sepals are also covered with fine hairs. The flowers are tiny (<1/4") with five white petals that have deeply notched tips, five sepals as long as the petals, five styles emerging from a green central ovary and ten stamens with yellow anthers. (Other chickweeds have three styles.)

Cerastium

Cerastium fontanum

mouse-ear chickweed [Blooms: Apr-May]

White turtlehead flowers are ~1-1.5" long with a few basal green sepal-like bracts and a green calyx bearing five oval teeth with rounded tips. The cavernous tubular, creamy-white corolla has two large lips — the two-lobed upper lip functions as a hood, while the three-lobed lower lip, "bearded" with wooly hairs, functions as a landing area for pollinators. Inside the corolla is a slim white style that runs along the inside of the upper lobe but turns down sharply at the lip, and five hairy stamens (one of which is green and sterile).

Chelone

Chelone glabra

white turtlehead [Blooms: Sep-Oct]

Enchanter's nightshade produces a raceme of scattered white flowers, 1/8-1/4" across; the flowers have two (deeply notched but otherwise quite pedestrian) white petals, two green sepals at 90° to the petals, two stamens, and a single slender style. At the base of the flower (behind the sepals) is an egg shaped, swollen green ovary; the ovary and the pedicels of the flowers are covered with long, hooked, white hairs. The fruit is a teardrop-shaped, bur-like remnant of the ovary; it contains two seeds. There is no other local plant that could be confused with this species.

Circaea

Circaea canadensis

enchanter's nightshade [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Spring beauty flowers occur in a cluster of 2-10 at the tip of the stem. The flowers are small (1/3-1/2") with long flower stalks; they contain (only) two green sepals, five petals with pinkish-purple stripes on a white background, five stamens with deeply purplish-pink anthers, and a single style that splits into three above its midpoint. The flowers close at night and on cloudy days and nod down; they perk up on reopening. The fruit is an three-part, egg-shaped capsule nestled between the two sepals.

Claytonia

Claytonia virginica

spring beauty [Blooms: Apr-May]

Lily-of-the-valley's raceme bears 6-14 bell-shaped, 8 mm long (and wide), white flowers on one side of the stalk; it often nods at its tip. Individual flowers are bell-shaped with six recurved, pointed lobes around the mouth, white to light green, with six stamens and a single style with a three-lobed stigma hidden inside. The corolla is pendant, dangling from the raceme by 1/2" long, flexible pedicels that have light green, narrow bracts about as long as the flowers at their base.

Convallaria

Convallaria majalis

lily-of-the-valley [Blooms: Apr-May]

Lance-leafed coreopsis flowerheads are 2-3" across; they have about eight broad, yellow ray florets with 3-5 (usually four) bold, sawtooth lobes at their tips (that may also be subdivided); the numerous disk florets are also yellow, tubular, about 1/4" long with 4-5 tiny lobes.

Coreopsis

Coreopsis lanceolata

lance-leafed coreopsis [Blooms: May-Jun]

Prairie coreopsis flowerheads occur alone or in pairs on 1/2-2" long peduncles attached to the ends of stems. Each flowerhead is about 2" across with 8-12 ray florets; two prominent longitudinal veins divide each ray floret petal into thirds. The disc florets are tubular with 4-5 lobes; they are initially yellow, but turn brownish with age.

Coreopsis

Coreopsis palmata

prairie coreopsis [Blooms: Jun-Jul]