Sweet Alison

Flower: White, occasionally pale purple, 5-6mm, 4 petals. Fruit: Flattened, oval seed pods bearing two seeds each. Leaves: Narrow, greyish-green, untoothed and lanceolate, usually having many whitish-silvery hairs.

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Sea Buckthorn

Flower: Tiny green and without petals, appearing along the stems. Fruit: An abundance of orange berries cover the tree. Leaves: Deciduous. Silvery leaves that are linear and untoothed.

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Viper's Bugloss

Flower: Pink buds which turn into a dense spike of funnel-shaped blue flowers. Downy sepals and 4-5 pink stamens. Fruit: Wrinkled nutlets, mossy in appearance. Leaves: The simple, rough, hairy, entire leaves are long and narrow with a prominent midrib. 1 alternate leaf per node.

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Lesser Burdock

Flower: Oval spiky flower heads. A feature worth noting when distinguishing between Greater Burdock and Lesser Burdock is the flower stalks. For Lesser Burdock, the flower stalks are very short, up to 1cm, bu... Fruit: Clusters of round, prickly fruit called 'burs'. The prickles of the burs have small hooks at their ends. The hooks can cause the fruit to stick to clothing and animal fur very easily while brushing pa... Leaves: The alternate stem leaves are large, broad, triangular with wavy edges. The even larger basal rosette leaves can be anything up to 20 inches long. Greater Burdock has solid lower leaf stalks, yet Less...

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Common Centaury

Flower: Dense pink cluster of 5 petalled flowers. Yellow anthers. Fruit: A cylindrical capsule, reaching up to half an inch in length and containing many seeds. Leaves: Leaves are oval, narrow and pointed. They exist opposite one another along their stems. Most of the leaves are often in a basal rosette.

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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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Seaside Daisy

Flower: Pale purple solitary flowers with yellow centres growing up to 4cm wide. Fruit: Insignificant. Leaves: Fleshy, evergreen, spoon-shaped leaves, narrowing towards the top of the plant. Occasionally toothed.

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Large-flowered Evening Primrose

Flower: Sepals red-striped, styles longer than stamens. Flowers up to 8cm wide, each having 4 large yellow petals. 8 stamens. Fruit: Dry fruit capsule, splitting open when ripe. Up to 4cm long. Leaves: Simple, toothed, alternate, pointed leaves. Crinkly, up to 6 inches long.

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Canadian Fleabane

Flower: Many-flowered. Small tubular 4-lobed yellow disc florets, yellow-green bracts that are only slightly downy, very short white rays. Fruit: Seedhead, white and bristly pappus. Cylindrical and elongated but widest above the middle. Leaves: Slender, simple, unstalked, linear leaves. Upper leaves have toothed margins and lower leaves have smooth margins.

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Fox and Cubs

Flower: One of very few orange flowers in our countryside. Flowers are borne in clusters, paler in their centres. Attracts many insects, such as hoverflies. Fruit: An achene, 3mm long and 1mm wide. Leaves: Bluish-green lanceolate basal leaves. Just a few leaves exist along the stems. The leaves are covered in short, dark, bristly hairs. In fact the entire plant is covered in these hairs.

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Goat's Beard

Flower: Yellow dandelion-type flower, opening in the morning and when sunny, up to 3cm. Pointed bracts much longer than florets. Fruit: A head of white seeds, similar-looking to dandelion but larger. Leaves: Alternate, stalkless and linear leaves, tapering to a sharp point. Parallel veins.

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Marram Grass

Flower: Long one-flowered dense flower spikes, straw-coloured. Fruit: A single-seeded dry fruit (caryopsis). Leaves: Sharp-pointed leaf blades at their tips. The leaves are also tightly rolled inwards and bluish green in colour. The upper surfaces are hairy but lower surfaces are glabrous.

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Pampas Grass

Flower: Large tufts of silver-white feathery plumes held high above the foliage. Fruit: The fruit of Pampas Grass is white and persists on the stalks. Leaves: Very long, blade-like, linear leaves. The ends taper and the margins are bristly and finely serrated. Feels like sandpaper to touch and can easily cause a wound if care is not taken when touching it.

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Soft Brome Grass

Flower: In erect or drooping clusters. The normally hairy clusters are roundish and short-awned. The lemmas (outer scales of the seed head) have pale narrow margins. Fruit: Pale green seeds. Bromus (see Latin name) is derived from the Greek word for Oat, and 'Soft' refers to the seed head meaning that it feels soft to touch. Leaves: Long, dull green leaf blades with parallel veins. The leaf blades are hairy. Soft Brome is an annual grass.

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Harebell

Flower: Nodding pale blue bell-shaped flowers on long stalks. Individual flowers up to 2cm in length. Fruit: A small nodding capsule, filled with minute seeds, up to 8mm long. Leaves: The long-stalked basal leaves are roundish, or kidney-shaped and have large rounded teeth which have normally wilted by flowering time. The leaves become shorter stalked as they go up the stem. The al...

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Mouse-ear Hawkweed

Flower: Small lemon yellow solitary dandelion-like flowers, reddish beneath and up to 3cm wide. Fruit: An achene with a pappus, up to 3mm long. Maturing to a purplish black colour. Leaves: Basal rosette of untoothed elliptical leaves. The undersides of the leaves are covered in soft white downy hairs.

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Sea Holly

Flower: Small but impressive powder blue spiny umbels. Fruit: Egg-shaped fruit with hooked spines. Leaves: A clump-forming evergreen perennial with steel blue prickly leaves. The leaves have white veins and margins. Thistle-like in appearance.

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Hottentot-fig

Flower: Large and many-petalled daisy-like flower, later fading to pink-purple. Yellow centre but not always. Up to 10cm wide. Fruit: Fig-like fruits but not tasting like fig at all. They rarely ripen in the UK. Leaves: 3-sided succulent leaves with pointed tips, carpeting the surface of the ground if left to grow.

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Yellow Flag Iris

Flower: Large, showy and eye-catching. Bright yellow with 3 spreading outer petals and 3 inner petals twisting inwards, up to 10cm. Fruit: A 3-angled capsule, or seed pod, packed tight with numerous seeds, splitting open later in the year. Up to 8cm long. Leaves: Long, linear, sword-like leaves which emerge out from the ground. Grows in water or on wet ground in compact clumps.

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Ray's Knotgrass

Flower: The tiny green, white or pink flowers appear in auxiliary clusters of 2 to 6. Flowers have 5 petals (actually tepals). Fruit: Shiny, 3-sided, chestnut brown nutlets which develop immediately after flowering. The nutlets protrude out of the dead flowers. Leaves: More compact and larger than Common Knotgrass. The narrow leaves have pale, greyish-brown tips. Each leaf is up to 3.5cm in length and has between 3 to 6 unbranched veins.

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Prickly Lettuce

Flower: Dandelion-like. Small, yellow and loosely clustered with bracts sometimes tinged purple. Fruit: Small, pale brown, single seed with a pappus. Leaves: Greyish leaves. The upper leaves clasp the stem. Slightly spiny and with sharper prickles on the midribs below the leaves. The plant is sometimes known as the 'compass plant' because of the way the le...

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Field Madder

Flower: Tiny pale pink, 4 petals, surrounded by leaf-like bracts. Fruit: Egg-shaped, up to 3mm long, with 2 lobes that separate into oblong and slightly curved nutlets upon ripening. Leaves: The leaves are in whorls of 4 to 6 along the stems. Each leaf is linear and pointed, up to 8mm long.

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White Melilot

Flower: White spikes of pea-like flowers. Fruit: 1 to 2 seeded pod. Dark brown, wrinkled, hairless, up to 5mm long. Leaves: Pinnate leaves with 3 leaflets. The stalked leaflets have serrated margins.

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Wild Mignonette

Flower: Yellow-green, 6 petals, short flower spikes. Fruit: A small dry capsule which splits open upon ripening. Leaves: Pale green, pinnate leaves with a wavy margin.

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Common Milkwort

Flower: Flowers in spikes, very variable in colour but normally deep blue, up to 7mm. Can be white, mauve or pink. Fruit: A flat, heart-shaped, 2-parted capsule. Leaves: Elongated, hairy leaves with entire margins. The leaves of Common Milkwort are alternate. The similar-looking Heath Milkwort has got opposite leaves along the stem.

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