False Acacia

Flower: Cream-white, pea-like flowers. The flowers hang down in a loose spike and are similar in appearance to Laburnum but creamy-white and not yellow. Fruit: Brown pea-like pods, up to 4 inches long. Leaves: Deciduous. Dark green, pinnate leaves, up to 25cm in length. 3 to 9 pairs of blunt, oval leaflets. Leaflets are untoothed.

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Winter Aconite

Flower: Cup-shaped flowers, up to 3cm wide. The flowers have large, deeply cut, leafy bracts at their bases. Fruit: Follicles which contain the seeds. Leaves: A perennial with deeply cut, glossy, hairless basal leaves. Throughout the British Isles, Winter Aconite is most common in the east of England and Scotland.

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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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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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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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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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Nettle-leaved Bellflower

Flower: Mid-blue, bell-shaped. Individual flowers up to 3.5cm in size. 1-3 flowers appear together on a stalked spike, the top ones opening first. Fruit: A dry, hairy nodding capsule that splits open upon ripening. Leaves: Rough, irregularly toothed, pointed leaves which are paler beneath. The plant earns its name from the leaves, as they resemble, or at least look similar to the leaves of Nettles.

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Peach-leaved Bellflower

Flower: Large, mid-blue (sometimes white), bell-shaped or star-shaped flowers. The 5 petals are slightly pointed. Similar to Clustered Bellflower but Clustered Bellflower has unstalked flowers which are deepe... Fruit: A heavily veined capsule with numerous tiny seeds. Leaves: Long narrow, toothed, evergreen, pointed leaves.

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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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Common Box

Flower: Male and female flowers exist on separate plants. No petals. Male flowers have 4 greenish-white sepals and yellow stamens. Females are greenish and without sepals. Fruit: The flower turns into a green capsule and then into a solid brown woody seed case. Leaves: Evergreen shrub. Small, short stalks, dark green, oval, shiny and leathery.

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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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Black Bryony

Flower: 6 small yellowish-green petals. Male and female flowers appearing on the same plant. Fruit: Shiny, red poisonous berries. Leaves: Stalked, dark green and shiny, glossy, heart-shaped leaves.

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Purging Buckthorn

Flower: Greenish-yellow tiny flowers, unstalked, appearing in dense clusters. 4 petals. Male and female flowers appear on separate trees. Fruit: The female flowers turn into green berries, later turning purplish-black. Leaves: Deciduous. Oval, pointed and finely toothed. In autumn, the leaves turn yellow and brown.

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Alder Buckthorn

Flower: Star-shaped pale green or white flowers. Flowers are up to 4mm in diameter. 5 stamens. Fruit: Green berries, turning red, then later purplish-black. The berries ripen in September. Leaves: Alder Buckthorn is thornless (unlike other Buckthorns). Their leaves are untoothed and alternate along the branches. Each leaf has between 6 and 10 pairs of veins. The leaves turn yellow or red in aut...

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Bird Cherry

Flower: Flowers very different than Wild Cherry. Cream-white, 5 petals, up to 1.5cm. Fruit: Very dark red cherries appear on some trees during autumn in the UK. Leaves: Deciduous tree. The oval and hairless, pointed leaves have serrated margins. Bird Cherry can be distinguished from Wild Cherry by the fine, sharp serrations on its leaf margins and the 2 nectar glands...

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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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Hollyberry Cotoneaster

Flower: Clusters of small pale pink flowers. Up to 20 flowers per cluster. The flowers may look a deeper shade of pink while still in bud. The flowers have white anthers. Fruit: Clusters of round, stalked, bright red berries appear from August to November (UK). The slightly square-shaped berries reach up to 8mm in diameter and contain 5 seeds (and sometimes but rarely 4). Up ... Leaves: Simple, oval, broadly-lanceolate, pointed leaves, growing alternately along the stems. The dark green leaves turn red and orange in autumn before falling. This plant is similar-looking to Bullate Coto...

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Bullate Cotoneaster

Flower: Large clusters of pinkish-white flowers, each with 5 petals. Fruit: Clusters of bright red berries frequently bird-sown, 1 cm in size when fully grown. Leaves: A deciduous or sometimes evergreen shrub (garden escape) with leaves of a blistered appearance, hence its alternative name. The Bullate Cotoneaster is difficult to tell apart from the similar-looking ...

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Late Cotoneaster

Flower: The flowers can be white or pink. White are the most common. Fruit: Bright red berries, sometimes purple or black. Leaves: The large, broad, oval leaves are simple and entire. They are cherry-like and leathery in appearance and the veins are deeply indented. The leaves measure up to 6cm in length.

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Cowslip

Flower: Deep yellow bell-shaped drooping flower, hanging to one side of the stem. Orange at the base, up to 1.5cm. Fruit: A capsule which contains a warty seed. Leaves: The leaves are all undivided and appear from the base of the plant. They are similar to Primrose leaves but smaller and with a narrowed base. The leaves are oval and wrinkly with toothed margins.

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Dutch Crocus

Flower: Golden yellow, cup-shaped, up to 4cm wide. Outer petals often marked with brown stripes. Leaves: Very linear with a pale stripe through the centre. The grass-like leaves emerge out from the surface of the ground.

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Crosswort

Flower: Minute pale yellow flowers that are borne in clusters around the base of the leaves. 4 petals. Fruit: Tiny, round nutlets. Black when ripe. Leaves: Leaves are pale green, hairy, simple, entire and elliptical. They are in whorls of 4 going along the stems. In fact, only 2 out of the 4 of those leaves are real leaves; the other two are stipules.

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Flowering Currant

Flower: 5 pink-to-red petals, hanging in loose clusters. Individual flowers up to 1cm. In spring, the flowers appear before the leaves. Fruit: Purplish black oval berries containing numerous seeds. Leaves: Deciduous. Leaves are stalked and palmate. Each leaf has 5 blunt lobes and serrated margins. The undersides of the leaves are downy.

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