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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Wood Anemone

Flower: White, often tinged with pink, 5-10 sepals (the white petals are actually sepals). Fruit: One-sided winged nuts called achenes, containing the seeds. Wind pollinated. Leaves: Simple, deeply cut leaves with a red stem.

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Wild Angelica

Flower: White, often tinged with pink, umbels up to 15cm across. Fruit: Flattened, round, oval papery wings. Dispersed by the wind. Leaves: Alternate, long-stemmed. Triangular 3-pinnate leaves. Leaflets are sharp-tipped and have serrated margins. Not hairy.

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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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Wood Avens

Flower: The long stalked, star-shaped flowers appear in loose clusters and are up to 2 cm across in diameter. The sepals turn downwards as the fruit forms. The flowers are similar in appearance to those of St... Fruit: Hooked fruit forming a bur-like head, bronze-tipped. Leaves: The leaves are unstalked. The lower ones are pinnate with the terminal leaflet being much the largest. Stem leaves are smaller and trefoil.

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Yellow Azalea

Flower: Funnel-shaped, bright yellow flowers, up to 5cm across. Flowers appear together in dense clusters of 5 to 25. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: A dry, woody seed capsule, containing several minute seeds. Leaves: A bushy deciduous shrub whose leaves are oblong and turn red, purple or orange in autumn. Commonly seen as a garden plant in the British Isles but sometimes seen bird-sown in woods and on moorland. Th...

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Common Barberry

Flower: Hanging yellow flowers. Insect-pollinated. Fruit: Red, globular berries. The seeds ripen in September and October. Leaves: Deciduous shrub whose leaves appear from March to November. The leaves are simple, oval and spiny-toothed.

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Golden Barberry

Flower: Clusters of small golden yellow flowers. Insect pollinated. Fruit: Bluish-black berries. Its seeds ripen in August and September. Leaves: A spiny evergreen shrub whose leaves are simple, narrow and spiny-toothed. The branches are arching. The leaves are mid-green and alternate along its branches. Each leaf measures about 2cm in length. ...

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Chinese Barberry

Flower: Yellow or orange flowers, tinged with red. In clusters of up to 25 flowers. Fruit: Purplish-black, elliptical berries, up to 6mm long. In fruit from July to November. Leaves: A dense bush with glossy, dark green, spiny, obovate leaves. The leaves are pale beneath. The branches contain long spines. The Gagnepain's Barberry (Berberis gagnepainii) is a similar looking shrub b...

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Gagnepain's Barberry

Flower: Golden yellow flowers are produced in clusters of about 5 or 6 (but sometimes up to 12), borne on short shoots. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: Waxy, bluish-black, oblong fruit. 1cm in length. The seeds ripen in September and October. Leaves: A thorny shrub with simple, lanceolate, toothed leaves. The thorns on the branches are 3-spined. The teeth on the leaf margins are tipped by short spines too. Chinese Barberry (Berberis julianae) is s...

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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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Wild Basil

Flower: The lilac, mauve, purple or pink flowers are in whorls and are found mostly at the top of the stems. 2-lipped. 4 or 5 lobed. Insect-pollinated. Fruit: A one-seeded nutlet. The seeds ripen in August and September. Leaves: Pointed, oval and slightly blunt-toothed, apple green leaves with prominent curved veins. Leaves are either stalkless or short-stalked. Square stems. A hairy perennial.

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Hedge Bedstraw

Flower: Small clusters of white flowers which are pointed, 2-5mm. 4 stamens. Fruit: Small, wrinked nutlets. No bristles present. Leaves: 6 to 8 stalked leaves in whorls. Elliptical, untoothed and pointed with a small bristles at the tips.

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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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Hedge Bindweed

Flower: Usually pure white but occasionally pink with 5 white stripes, up to 6cm, trumpet-shaped. Sepals often purple tinged and only half-covered by two large bracts. Often hybridizes with Hedge Bindweed mak... Fruit: A capsule which contains 1 to 4 seeds, rarely more than 1cm long. Leaves: Long stalked, arrow-shaped leaves and sharp-tipped, not hairy. The bases of the leaves have angled lobes.

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Large Bindweed

Flower: White but occasionally pale pink with 5 white stripes, up to 9cm, trumpet-shaped. Bracts completely covering the sepals unlike Hedge Bindweed, however Large Bindweed often hybridizes with Hedge Bindwe... Fruit: Light brown capsules, usually containing 2 seeds. Leaves: Arrow-shaped with a sharp tip, alternate and long-stalked. The bases of the leaves have V-shaped angular lobes.

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Bittersweet

Flower: 5 bright purple bent back petals, anthers forming a bright yellow pointed cone, up to 1.5cm across. Sepals and stalks are also sometimes purple. Fruit: Clusters of round green berries, later turn yellow, orange or bright red. Leaves: Alternate, pointed and oval. Often with one or more pairs of basal ovate lobes, or leaflets at the base.

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Blackthorn

Flower: White, 5 petals, numerous stamens containing gold pollen. Flowers appear before the leaves emerge. Fruit: Like a diminutive plum with a bluish-black waxy coating. Contains a large stone in the centre. The fruit are called 'sloes'. Leaves: Short-stalked, small and slender, pointed oval leaves, alternate and finely toothed. Greyish green beneath with hairy veins.

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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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Bramble

Flower: 5 petals of white or pink, sepals down-turned in fruit, 3cm wide. Fruit: The berries are commonly known as 'blackberries'. Dark purple to black aggregated seeded drupelets. The less frequent Dewberry is similar-looking to Bramble but the fruit of Dewberry is purplish-blue,... Leaves: Compound leaves, 3 -7 toothed leaflets.

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