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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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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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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Bracken

Flower: Bracken is a fern so does not have flowers. Instead, it reproduces using spores. Fruit: Spores. Leaves: Large triangular fronds, divided into 3 parts. Each part is bipinnately subdivided. The leaves when young look like 'shepherd's crooks', or 'croziers'. In autumn, the leaves turn yellow-brown and pers...

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Japanese Cedar

Flower: Flowers are green and inconspicuous. The yellow pollen of Japanese Cedar is often responsible for sneezing and hay fever. Fruit: Green cones at the tips of the branches, later turning brown. 2cm in diameter. In fruit from October to March. Leaves: Dense, tiny, awl-shaped leaves which spiral around the branches.

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Spring Cinquefoil

Flower: Small clusters of buttercup-like flowers, each measuring up to 18mm across. The 5 sepals are clearly visible in the spaces between the petals. Spring Cinquefoil is an almost identical plant to Creepin... Fruit: A short-tipped achene. Leaves: Mat-forming with hairy palmate leaves, between 5 and 7 leaflets.

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Wall Cotoneaster

Flower: Pink with white anthers, up to 5mm. Fruit: Orange-red berries. Leaves: Small, pointed leaves that are shiny on both sides. Dark green on the upper surfaces and paler beneath, turning red in autumn. The leaves are positioned tightly together and are close to the branches....

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Common Cow-wheat

Flower: Annual. Flowers in pairs with leaf-like bracts at the bottom, pale to deep yellow, sometimes tinged pink, up to 2cm. Fruit: Elliptical, oval, flattened capsule, carrying 4 seeds, later splitting on one side. Seeds are dispersed by ants. The botanical name of 'Melampyrum' is derived from the Greek 'melas' (black) and 'pyros... Leaves: Opposite, linear-lanceolate leaves which are nearly stalkless. Leaf bracts have long teeth at the base.

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Wood Cranesbill

Flower: Reddish-purple 5 petalled flowers, up to 3cm. Fruit: The Cranesbills are named after the shape of their fruit as they are beak-like in appearance. The fruit have erect stalks when ripe. Leaves: The palmate leaves are less deeply cut than most other Cranesbills. Up to 20cm wide.

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Crowberry

Flower: Very small, pale pink flowers situated at the bases of the leaves. 3 stamens per flower. Insect pollinated. Fruit: The fruit is a green berry (drupe) which turns pink, purple and then black. The berries measure about 7 or 8mm in diameter. The fruit appears from May to December. The seeds ripen in September. Occasi... Leaves: A perennial, dwarf shrub with flat, glossy, stalkless leaves that are stubby and needle-like in appearance. The leaves spiral up the stems and are about 6mm in length. The ends of the stems are reddis...

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Greater Cuckooflower

Flower: Clusters of pink flowers with purple veins. Insect-pollinated. Fruit: Pods. Leaves: A perennial with pinnate leaves, divided into pairs. The end leaflet is large.

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Poet's Daffodil

Flower: Large white or off-white, raggedy-looking petals. The petals have gaps between them. The flower has a yellow centre with a red corona around the outside. Fruit: A capsule with many seeds. Leaves: Long, linear greyish-green leaves. A bulbous perennial of ash and oak woodland.

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Yellow Day-lily

Flower: Lemon yellow trumpet-shaped flowers, appearing in clusters. Up to 9cm across. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: The fruit is a capsule. Leaves: A clump-forming perennial. The mid-green leaves are narrow, up to 6.5cm long and 1.5cm wide. All leaves are basal leaves.

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Deergrass

Flower: Egg-shaped spikelets which grow solitary at the top of the stem. Fruit: 3 sided nuts. Leaves: Tussock-forming, dense, erect, stiff leaves with unbranched stems. Basal leaves only.

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Deodar

Flower: Male and female flowers appear on the same tree. Male flowers are erect pale yellowish-green catkins, growing up to 5cm in length. Female cones are reddish-brown and egg-shaped, growing up to 13cm. Fruit: Brown, upright and ovoid cones, either solitary or in pairs, with several fan-shaped scales. Up to 12cm long, rounded at the top. Cones are bluish when young and turn reddish when ripe. A pair of wing... Leaves: Evergreen tree. Foliage is silvery blue. Needles are stiff and have sharp-pointed. The needles are arranged spirally in whorls.

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Mountain Everlasting

Flower: The flowers appear in a closely compact umbel at the top of the plant. The cottony-looking flowers are white or pale pink. Flowers are 6 to 12mm in diameter. Fruit: The fruit is a dull brown, oval achene. Hairs are present at one end of the fruit. Leaves: A patch-forming, semi-evergreen perennial plant. The silvery-green leaves are narrowly spoon-shaped, forming a basal rosette. They are appressed close to the stem. The tips of the leaves are pointed. ...

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Hard Fern

Flower: Ferns have spores, flowers are therefore absent. Fruit: The spores on the underside of the fronds can be either yellow, green, brown or black. Leaves: The fronds can either be sterile or fertile. The evergreen, narrow, sterile fronds often lie horizontally across the ground, and the even narrower, taller, fertile fronds are more erect, withering tow...

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Hard Shield Fern

Flower: Ferns produce spores to reproduce and so ferns are flowerless. Fruit: The spores ripen between July and February. Leaves: Hard Shield Fern is an evergreen tufted fern with overwintering, glossy, dark green leaves (fronds). The leaves emerge from the surface of the ground in a rosette formation. They branches are erect an...

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Broad Buckler Fern

Flower: Ferns do not produce flowers. They reproduce by means of spores. Fruit: Spores ripen in July and August. Leaves: The scales on the stalks are dark, or dark-centred. The dark centred scales are a good feature for identifying this fern. Dark green, spreading 3-pinnate fronds (leaves) which are broadly triangular i...

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Parsley Fern

Flower: A fairly common fern found mainly in Wales, Cumbria and Scotland. Ferns do not have flowers. They reproduce by means of spores instead. Leaves: An evergreen, alpine fern with pale green fronds. As the name implies, this fern has fronds which resemble parsley. It is a bushy plant which grows in clusters.

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Blue Fleabane

Flower: Loose clusters of erect flowers with small pink or lilac-coloured rays and yellow centres. Flowers measure up to 18mm tall. The flowers are named because they often look blue from a distance away. Fruit: Off-white (pinkish) pappus. Leaves: Long, slender, untoothed leaves which half-clasp their stems. The leaves alternate along their stems. Annual or biennial.

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Fairy Foxglove

Flower: Mauve to pale purple flowers which make up a leafy flower spike. The petals are notched. Flowers have a long petal-tube and measure 1cm wide. Fruit: A many-seeded capsule. Leaves: Perennial. Small narrow, toothed, hairy leaves, mainly in basal rosettes.

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Globeflower

Flower: Flowers are solitary and globular in shape with 5 to 15 incurved petals. Flowers measure approximately 4cm in size. Many yellow stamens and anthers. Bracts are absent from the flowers. Pollinated by f... Fruit: Purple-tipped, barrel-shaped fruits. The seeds ripen from July to September. Leaves: A clump-forming perennial with 3 to 5-lobed, deeply cut leaves. The leaves are similar looking to Meadow Buttercup or Meadow Cranesbill. Stipules are absent.

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Spanish Gorse

Flower: Golden yellow pea-like flowers appearing in rounded clusters of about 12. Flowers are usually abundant. Pollinated by bees. Fruit: Flattish, oval, green pods which bear between 1 and 4 seeds. Leaves: A deciduous shrub with spiny green stems. The leaves are of two types. They are either spiny with a very sharp point, or dark greyish-green, oval and hairy. The plant is very softly hairy all over.

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Grass of Parnassus

Flower: This plant is in decline and within the British Isles it is mainly found in Scotland. In the south of England it is virtually non-existent. Grass of Parnassus is also the county flower of Cumbria and ... Fruit: The fruit is a long, 4-parted capsule. Leaves: Perennial with pale green oval leaves. The long-stalked leaves are heart-shaped and similar in appearance to the leaves of Violet. The leaf including the stalk can reach up to 14cm in length.

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