Family name – Common |
Family name – Scientific |
brief description |
examples |
Buckwheat |
Polygonaceae |
most have swollen nodes at leaf joints, lower growing, small showy flowers, often very tough, hardy plants |
knotweed, sulfur buckwheat, sorrel, dock |
Purslane |
Montiaceae |
usually fleshy leaves, low growing, some very showy blooms |
purslane, pussypaws, montia, Lewisia, claytonia/miner’s lettuce |
Mustard |
Brassicaceae |
four petals with 6 stamens, inferior and large, showy ovaries, most are edible; |
cress and rock-cress, wallflower, mustard, draba, pepper-grass, shepherd’s purse |
Saxifrage |
Saxifragaceae |
large and diverse family, name means broken rock (referring to a split ovary), mostly basal leaves; small but showy flowers with four-five petals, showy stamens |
prairie stars, alum root, Oregon saxifrage, grassland saxifrage |
Buttercup |
Ranunculaceae |
sepals and petals colored, many stamens, superior multiple ovaries |
sagebrush buttercup, Blue Mountain buttercup, western, and other buttercups, larkspur, delphinium, columbine, clematis, pasqueflower |
Rose |
Roseaceae |
very large, diverse family, usually five green sepals with five colorful, showy petals, forbs, shrubs, trees and vines, many have edible fruits |
wild rose, horkelia, ocean spray, geum, strawberry, partridgefoot, avens, potentilla, bitter-brush, raspberry, hackberrry |
Pea |
Fabaceae |
irregular flowers, with a “bonnet” at top and a “keel” at the bottom, often bi-colored, showy, usually compound leaves |
vetch, loco weed, lupine, woolly-pod milk vetch, giant-head clover, prairie-clover |
Violet |
Violaceae |
irregular flowers, 2 petals up and 3 down with landing lines for pollinators, showy |
sagebrush violet, yellow prairie violet, and out towards Idaho the gorgeous Beckwith’s violet |
Evening Primrose |
Onagraceae |
four petals, very showy, big seedpods |
clarkia, fireweed, willow-herb, evening primrose |
Carrot |
Apiceae |
flowers tiny in huge clusters arranged like umbrellas, parsley-like foliage, tap roots, NOTE—many edibles, but a few deadly poisonous |
lomatum/desert parsley—many varieties, yellow, white and pink, biscuitroot, turkey peas |
Phlox |
Polmoniaceae |
five showy petals fused into a long tube, many with tiny, sharp leaves, very tough plants of rocky areas |
phlox, scarlet gilia, collomia |
Borage |
Boraginaceae |
showy flowers on coiled stalks, often two-toned |
popcorn flower, cryptantha, forget-me-not, blue bell, puccoon, fiddle-neck, stickseed |
Figwort |
Scrophulariaceae |
giant and diverse family of irregular flowers, many oddities and weirdos |
pink elephant head, figwort, many penstemons, monkeyflower, lousewort, Indian paintbrush, owl-clover, collinsia |
Sunflower |
Asteraceae |
“composite” flowers with two distinct types of flowers present together on a head: ray flowers on the outside (the white daisy “petals”) and the disc flowers on the inside (the yellow center of a daisy) |
aster, daisy, Townsendia, arnica, hawksbeard, wild lettuce, agoseris, microseris, rosy everlasting, pussy toes, dirty socks, gold stars, Oregon sunshine, gaillardia, wyethia, balsam root, yarrow, thistles, rabbit brush, sagebrush |