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For Your Garden - January 2014

Have you been meaning to add a few native plants to your garden? Native plants provide beauty as well as food and shelter for wildlife. Native species are adapted to the Illinois climate. They require little or no watering and are resistant to drought, insects and most diseases. Because they are perennials, you can welcome their presence year after year.

prairie Indian plantain (Arnoglossum plantagineum)

Prairie Indian plantain grows throughout Illinois in wet prairies and near marshes and bogs. This plant of the daisy family produces flowers in flat-topped clusters at the tip of the stems. Flowers are white and appear from June through August. Leaves may be eight inches long and four inches wide. The leaves are oval and show several large, parallel veins. The plant can grow from two to four feet tall.

Classification and taxonomy are based on Mohlenbrock, Robert H. 2014. Vascular flora of Illinois: A field guide. Fourth edition. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. 536 pp.

Illinois Range

Native Plant Information

For more information about Illinois native plants, visit our Native Habitat Descriptions, Requirements, and Plant Lists page. The following publications are available from the IDNR on our publications page.

Taxonomy

​Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae

Illinois Status: common, native