False Acacia

Flower: Cream-white, pea-like flowers. Fruit: Brown pea-like pods, up to 4 inches long. Leaves: Deciduous. Dark green, pinnate leaves. 3 to 9 pairs of blunt, oval leaflets.

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Grey Alder

Flower: Pendulous, red-brown and becoming yellow later (male catkins). Red, erect and cylindrical (female catkins). Male and female catkins present on same tree. Fruit: Wooded cones which persist on the tree throughout winter months. Leaves: Deciduous. Hairy, ovate and pointed, glossy, grey beneath.

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Italian Alder

Flower: The male and female flowers appear on separate trees. The yellowish-brown male catkins are pendulous and borne in clusters of 3 to 6 and are up to 10cm long. The male catkins appear before the leaves ... Fruit: The female flowers become woody and turn into the cone-like fruit. The fruit are overwintering. The cones are larger than most other Alder cone species, up to 2.5cm long. Leaves: A deciduous tree with dark green, alternate, glossy, heart-shaped leaves and finely serrated margins. Cordata (see Botanical Name) means 'heart-shaped'.

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Green Alkanet

Flower: Bright blue, 8-10mm, 5 petals. Fruit: 4 nutlets per flower, each having a ridged surface. Leaves: Hairy, broad, alternate leaves with deep veins and pointed tips. Leaves are smaller and without stalks towards the top.

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Crab Apple

Flower: Pinkish white in small clusters, 5 petals. Fruit: Fruit is long stalked, small and round, no larger than 2 inches in diameter but usually much smaller. Colour is very variable. Leaves: Deciduous. Stalked, oval with serrated edges.

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Cultivated Apple

Flower: Pinkish white in small clusters, 5 petals. Fruit: Large, fleshy and round. Can be green, yellow, pink, red or purple. Leaves: Deciduous, simple leaves growing alternate along the branches, serrated margins.

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Common Ash

Flower: Petalless with tufts of purple-to-black stamens which turn green later. Fruit: Numerous hanging winged seeds which form clusters. The fruits of this tree are often called 'keys'. Leaves: Deciduous. Britain's only native tree with opposite, pinnate leaves. Leaflets are dark green and toothed.

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Mountain Ash

Flower: White with cream-coloured anthers. Fruit: Tight clusters of red berries. Leaves: Deciduous. Similar to Common Ash leaves. Pinnate with toothed leaflets.

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Darwin's Barberry

Flower: Small orange bell-shaped, hanging in clusters. Fruit: Small dark purple to black berries which ripen in summer. Leaves: Small and oval. The edges are spiny.

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Thunberg's Barberry

Flower: Tiny pale yellow, insignificant flowers. Fruit: Orange-red ovoid berries with long stalks, each containing a single seed. Leaves: Deciduous shrub with green leaves that turn red in autumn. After the leaves have fallen off during the winter months, the spiny stems are revealed.

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Bearsbreech

Flower: Tall spike of white flowers with purple veins. Fruit: An ovoid capsule which contains 2-4 black seeds. Leaves: Glossy green leaves, growing up to 60cm in length. The leaves are also pinnate with deep lobes, pointed but not spiny. A similar species called Spiny Bearsbreech (Acanthus spinosus) exists but is more...

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Common Beech

Flower: Male and female yellowish-green catkins grow together on the same tree. Male catkins dangle loosely from stalks at the end of twigs. Female catkins exist in pairs and are surrounded by a cup, later tu... Fruit: The nuts are called 'beech mast' and are brown 3-sided nuts with a tough bristly husk on the outside. Leaves: Deciduous. Pointed leaf buds. Oval, up to 9cm long and pale green and silky when young, turning dark green later in the year. Hairless. Leaves turn yellow or orange in autumn.

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Copper Beech

Flower: Male and female yellowish-green catkins grow together on the same tree. Male catkins dangle loosely from stalks at the end of twigs. Female catkins exist in pairs and are surrounded by a cup, later tu... Fruit: The brown nuts are called 'beech mast' and are 3-sided with a tough outer casing that is bristly on the outside. Leaves: Deciduous. Pointed leaf buds. Oval and hairless, up to 9cm long, pale to deep purple.

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Fern-leaf Beech

Flower: Inconspicuous. Fruit: The nuts or 'beech mast' as they are known, are brown, 3-sided and have a tough bristly husk on their outer casing. Leaves: Deciduous. The leaves are more linear than the Common Beech and with large, prominent and deeply serrated margins. The leaves are fern-like in appearance after which the tree is named.

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Field Bindweed

Flower: Pink with 5 white stripes, up to 2.5cm, trumpet-shaped. Fruit: An oval or roundish capsule containing 2 seeds, but sometimes 1-4. Leaves: Stalked, arrow-shaped, alternate, sharp-tipped and hairs are sparse.

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Hairy Bindweed

Flower: Pink with 5 distinct white stripes, up to 7cm, trumpet-shaped. Fruit: 1 to 4 seeded egg-shaped capsules. Leaves: Pointed and usually arrow-shaped. Leaf stalks are either glabrous or slightly hairy.

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Downy Birch

Flower: Male and female catkins appear on the same tree. Erect female catkins are shorter and green. Male catkins hang loosely in groups of 2-4. Often hybridizes with Silver Birch making identification tricky. Fruit: Small dry one-sided winged fruits, called 'achenes'. Leaves: Deciduous. Ovate, pointed and with serrated margins. Light green in spring, darkening and then turning yellow or orange in autumn. Leaves are often hairy underneath.

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Paper-bark Birch

Flower: Inconspicuous male and female catkins which are borne on the same tree, usually present in clusters of 3. Fruit: Small nutlets appear in clusters. Leaves: Deciduous. Ovate with pointed tips, stalked and with serrated edges. Turns yellow in autumn. Up to 4cm long.

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Silver Birch

Flower: Male yellow catkins hang loose, female catkins much shorter and erect. Often hybridizes with Downy Birch making identification somewhat difficult at times. Fruit: The female catkins develop hundreds of winged seeds as their fruit. Leaves: Deciduous. Stalked and triangular in shape with doubly serrated margins. Leaves turn yellow in autumn. Downy Birch leaves have got serrated margins only, not doubly serrated as with Silver Birch.

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Hairy Bittercress

Flower: Tiny and forming clusters at the top. 4 white petals with 4 yellow stamens. Counting the number of stamens is perhaps the most reliable way to distinguish this flower from the almost identical Wavy Bi... Fruit: Long and slender seed pods that split open when ripe. Leaves: Basal rosette, anything up to 9 inches long. Compound leaves with alternate leaflets that have one leaf per node along the main upright stem. The leaves persist throughout the winter months.

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Wavy Bittercress

Flower: Tiny and forming clusters at the top. 4 white petals with 6 yellow stamens. Counting the number of stamens is perhaps the most reliable way to distinguish this flower from the almost identical Hairy B... Fruit: Long, thin, cylindrical seed pods which usually are lower than the topmost flowers. This is useful to know when trying to distinguish this flower from Hairy Bittercress which has seed pods that normal... Leaves: The basal rosette has alternate leaves. Stem leaves are compound with 3-6 pairs of leaflets and a terminal leaflet. Leaflets are wavy edged. The upright main stem upon which the leaves emerge from are...

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Blanketflower

Flower: Large daisy-like flowers that are usually solitary on the end of a long stalk. 6 to 18 3-lobed petals per flower. The petals are bright red with yellow tips. Flowers have a large dark red, or purple c... Fruit: An single-seeded fruit called an 'achene'. Hairy, in the shape of an inverted pyramid. Leaves: Lanceolate, greyish-green, toothed and slightly hairy.

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English Bluebell

Flower: Azure blue and bell-shaped, forming one-sided spikes that droop at the tip. Each flower consists of 6 down-turned lobes. Sometimes the flowers are white. Fruit: Round seed pods develop after the flowers, eventually drying out and becoming brown. Inside the seed pods are many tiny black seeds. Leaves: Long, narrow leaves, no more than half an inch wide. The Spanish Bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica) has broader leaves than the English Bluebell.

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Spanish Bluebell

Flower: Blue bell-shaped flowers, but sometimes pink or white. The Spanish Bluebell has more erect flowering spikes than the English Bluebell. Unlike the English Bluebell, its spikes are not one-sided. The fl... Fruit: Round seed pods develop after the flowers, filled with many small back seeds. Leaves: Long, narrow leaves but wider than English Bluebell leaves, up to 3.5cm wide.

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Borage

Flower: 5 narrow bright blue petals that are pointed and borne in clusters. Fruit: The fruit is composed of dark brown or black nutlets in groups of 4. The nutlets are ridged. Leaves: Dark green, prickly, pointed, oval and wavy-edged. The leaves are covered in a fine white bristle which can sometimes give the plant a woolly or silvery appearance.

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