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Discover Nature (Missouri Department of Conservation)

Discover Nature: Prairie Blazing Star Blooms

KBIA | By Kyle Felling
Published July 29, 2019 at 5:49 PM CDT
Vertical clusters of pink-purple flowers stand atop green stalks in a field of native grasses and other wildflowers.
Prairie Blazing Star (Liatris pychnostachya) blooms in Missouri this week. These purple perennial wildflowers serve an important ecological role.

Discover nature this week, and keep an eye out for one of Missouri’s showiest native wildflowers blooming along roadsides and in tallgrass prairies.

 

Prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya) is a purple perennial wildflower.  Its tall, unbranched, hairy stalks blossom with spikes of dense purple floret clusters from July to October. 

 

Prairie blazing star grows on glades, prairies, blufftops, savannas, ditches, fencerows, pastures, railroads, and roadsides across the state. Nine species of Liatris grow in Missouri and they often hybridize where they occur in the same area. 

 

Also known as gayfeather or button snakeroot, American Indians and early settlers ate the roots, raw or baked, and used the Liatris species to treat a variety of ailments, including snakebites. 

 

Voles and other herbivorous mammals relish the sweet, thickened rootstocks, while a wide variety of insects visit the flowers, and birds feed on the seeds. 

 

Blazing stars are an important part of the complex community of plants in Missouri’s tallgrass prairie and make an appealing addition to native wildflower gardens. 

 

Learn more about Prairie Blazing Star and Missouri’s other native wildflowers blooming right now with the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) online field guide, and the Missouri Prairie Foundation’s native plant database.  

 

MDC maintains conservation areas, and natural areas to provide public access to Missouri’s natural resources within a 30-minute drive from most anywhere in the state. Find one of these areas near you, and discover nature on your own at the MDC online atlas.

 

Discover Nature is sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation. 

 
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Kyle Felling
Kyle Felling’s work at KBIA spans more than three decades. In 2025, he became KBIA and KMUC's Station Manager. He began volunteering at the station while he was a Political Science student at the University of Missouri. After being hired as a full-time announcer, he served as the long-time local host of NPR’s All Things Considered on KBIA, and was Music Director for a number of years. Starting in 2010, Kyle became KBIA’s Program Director, overseeing on-air programming and operations while training and supervising the station’s on-air staff. During that period, KBIA regularly ranked among the top stations in the Columbia market, and among the most listened to stations in the country. He was instrumental in the launch of KBIA’s sister station, Classical 90.5 FM in 2015, and helped to build it into a strong community resource for classical music. Kyle has also worked as an instructor in the MU School of Journalism, training the next generation of journalists and strategic communicators. In his spare time, he enjoys playing competitive pinball, reading comic books and Joan Didion, watching the Kansas City Chiefs, and listening to Bruce Springsteen and the legendary E Street Band.
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