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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Water Avens

Flower: Flowers borne on long stalks. Pink petals are notched and rounded. Dark red sepals are bell-shaped and nodding, 15mm wide. Fruit: Hooked fruits form a bur-like head. Leaves: Lower leaves are pinnate. The leaves on the stems are 3-lobed with small stipules at their bases.

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Limestone Bedstraw

Flower: The small flowers of Limestone Bedstraw are 4-petalled and grow in tight, domed clusters. This plant is similar to Heath Bedstraw but Limestone Bedstraw is more mat-forming with creamier white petals. Fruit: 2-parted nutlet with tiny dome-shaped warts. Leaves: A very low growing flower with unstalked narrow leaves in whorls of 7 to 8. The leaves are more pointed than the similar-looking Heath Bedstraw. The hairs on the leaf margins point backwards with Lime...

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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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Ivy Broomrape

Flower: Cream-coloured, up to 2cm, sometimes hairy, yellow stamens. Fruit: An egg-shaped capsule. Leaves: Without any leaves. The plant has no green pigment and is parasitic on Ivy. However, the stems bear many large and pointed fleshy scales.

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Salad Burnet

Flower: Oval burgundy-coloured flower heads on long stalks. Fruit: An achene which is a small one seeded dry, ridged nut. Leaves: Pinnate, having up to 12 pairs of toothed leaflets.

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Common Butterwort

Flower: Violet, on long stalks and up to 2cm. Diverging lower lip and a pointed spur. Fruit: Brownish-yellow capsule, ovate, with numerous small brown seeds. Leaves: Yellow-green star-shaped basal rosette with margins curled upwards. 3 to 6 succulent leaves, each up to 8cm long. Butterwort is an insectivorous plant. The leaves feel sticky to touch because the leaf...

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Red Campion

Flower: 5 rose-pink notched petals, up to 2.5cm. Flowers range in colour from dark red to pale pink depending on geographic location. Fruit: An ovoid capsule with 10 curved back teeth after becoming ripe. The capsule contains numerous seeds. Leaves: The dark green leaves are untoothed and appear in opposite pairs. They are lanceolate, pointed and with long winged stalks.

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Sea Campion

Flower: 5 white overlapping petals with broader sepals and often solitary, up to 2.5cm. Sometimes tinged slightly pink. Fruit: A capsule with down-turned teeth. Leaves: Dark green, smooth and waxy leaves, forming a carpet over the ground. Arranged in opposite pairs along the stem.

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Climbing Corydalis

Flower: Pale yellow clusters. Individual flowers up to 6mm long. Fruit: An ovate, or cylindrical capsule. Leaves: Small greyish-green leaves with tendrils attached to the ends of leaf stems. The long-stalked leaves have 3 to 5 leaflets.

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Yellow Corydalis

Flower: Rich yellow dense spikes appearing opposite one another under the leaves. The flowers themselves are small, yellow and trumpet-like in shape. Fruit: A slender pod, or capsule, up to 2cm long. The pods hang downwards but as they ripen they curve upwards then split open to reveal their black, shiny seeds. Leaves: Pale green or greyish. Bipinnate.

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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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Dovesfoot Cranesbill

Flower: 5 notched pinkish-purple petals, up to 1.5cm across. The similar-looking Shining Cranesbill has unnotched petals. All 10 stamens have crimson-coloured anthers. The 5 sepals are shorter than the petals. Fruit: Elongated, slender seed pod, beak-shaped. Leaves: Divided into 5 to 7 wedge-shaped lobes. Borne either singly on the stem, or in opposite pairs. Long-stalked.

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Shining Cranesbill

Flower: Deep pink, 5 unnotched petals, up to 1.5cm across. Yellow stigma. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: The ridged fruit pods are long and pointed, just like a 'crane's bill'. Leaves: Glossy, round or kidney-shaped, 5-lobed leaves. Not hairy. Leaves are often red. Long-stalked and in opposite pairs along the stem.

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Bloody Cranesbill

Flower: Bright red or purple flowers, but occasionally pink or white. The flowers have 5 dark purple-veined petals and are usually overlapping and unnotched, but occasionally they are shallowly notched. Flowe... Fruit: A drooping seed capsule borne from a nodding flower bud, sometimes turning red in autumn. Leaves: Small, deep and narrowly cut leaves consisting of 5 to 7 lobes. The leaves are hairy but not as hairy as those that appear on the flower buds and stems. The leaves often turn red in autumn.

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Dropwort

Flower: The flowers are similar-looking to Meadowsweet but are in looser clusters and larger, each flower growing up to 15mm across and having 5 to 6 creamy white petals, often reddish. Fruit: Groups of softly hairy nutlets. Each nutlet measuring up to 4cm across. Leaves: Several finely-cut, crowded basal leaflets, darker in colour than Meadowsweet. Fern-like in appearance, hence the plants alternative name of Fern-leaf Dropwort. Leaflets are in pairs of 8 to 10.

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Rigid Buckler Fern

Flower: Flowers are absent since ferns reproduce by spores. Fruit: The spores ripen between July and September in the UK. Leaves: Growing only on Limestone pavements, almost exclusively in North West England. This is a rare fern which appears in leaf between May and November. The leaves (or fronds) are narrowly triangular, rigid...

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Maidenhair Fern

Flower: Ferns do not have flowers. Fruit: The spores ripen from May to August in the UK. Leaves: The fan-shaped secondary leaflets of this fern make it easily identifiable.

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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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Male Fern

Flower: Flowers absent. Ferns reproduce by spores. Fruit: The spores ripen from July to September. Leaves: Evergreen. Light green and feathery bipinnate leaves which taper at both ends.

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Polypody Fern

Flower: No flowers. Ferns reproduce by means of spores. Leaves: Evergreen. Narrow and oblong, leathery, dark green fronds that are blunt and untoothed.

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Rustyback Fern

Flower: Does not have flowers. Ferns have spores instead. Fruit: Spores ripen from April to October. Leaves: Fronds are linear and pinnate. The underside of the fronds have many orange-brown hairs which give the plant is name. The hairs are technically known as 'trichomes'.

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Foxglove

Flower: Tubular purple flowers appearing on tall unbranched stalked spikes. Flowers sometimes white and oftentimes speckled dark purple. Fruit: A capsule containing many tiny seeds, 15mm long. Leaves: Simple, toothed, ovoid, leaves with serrated margins. The basal leaves which form in the first year are large with long stalks. The older stem leaves are smaller and shorter stalked. The stem leaves a...

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Common Goldenrod

Flower: Yellow, 6-12 ray petals loosely arranged around yellow disc florets, in straight spikes. Fruit: A brown hairy achene, tipped with short white hairs. Leaves: Linear leaves which are occasionally slightly toothed.

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