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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Wall Barley

Flower: Bristly flower spikes reaching up to 10cm in length, although seldom that long. Wind pollinated. Fruit: A flattened, globular caryopsis. A caryopsis is a type of one-seeded, dry fruit, typical of grasses and cereal crops. Leaves: An annual species of grass with long, stiff awns. The awns reach 3cm in length. The leaves also have long basal auricles. The sheaths are flat and hairy. This is the commonest species of Barley which ...

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Trailing Bellflower

Flower: Lilac blue, bell-shaped flowers with star-shaped lobes. Similar-looking to Adria Bellflower (Campanula portenschlagiana) but with paler blue flowers. Insect-pollinated. Fruit: A capsule which contains many seeds. Leaves: A compact, evergreen, spreading perennial with heart-shaped leaves and roughly triangular but irregular toothed-edges.

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Adria Bellflower

Flower: Many violet blue, bell-shaped flowers, each is 2cm in diameter. Adria Bellflower looks quite similar to Trailing Bellflower (Campanula poscharskyana) but is darker in colour. The flowers of Adria Bell... Fruit: A capsule, containing numerous seeds. Leaves: The mid-green leaves are heart-shaped with jaggedly toothed margins. Perennial evergreen.

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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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White Campion

Flower: 5 white notched petals, up to 3cm. Calyx is greener, narrower and twice as long as with Red Campion. Fruit: Light yellow or brown ovoid capsules, bearing numerous seeds. Leaves: Opposite, hairy, untoothed, lanceolate, dark green leaves. Basal leaves are stalked and the upper leaves are unstalked.

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Greater Celandine

Flower: Small yellow flowers. Unrelated to Lesser Celandine and resembling Lesser Celandine only in appearance of its flowers. Fruit: A narrow cylindrical pod-like capsule containing black seeds. Leaves: Bushy and bluish-green in appearance. Pinnately divided with blunt lobes. Sparsely-haired leaves which are stalked and branch off alternately along the stems. Their undersides are silvery blue.

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Mountain Clematis

Flower: The white or pink flowers reach 7cm in diameter. Rose pink flower buds. Yellow anthers. Fruit: The fruits are ball-shaped and have long, woolly appendages attached. Leaves: A climbing shrub which is fairly rare in the wild in the UK. The leaves are trifoliate and have 3 stalked leaflets. The leaves are green but often tinted bronze.

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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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Franchet's Cotoneaster

Flower: Flowers have 5 small white petals, tinged pink. Flowers are clustered. Fruit: Red berries. Leaves: Semi-evergreen shrub. Dark green, alternate leaves along the stems, glossy, oval and pointed. Leaf veins are prominent. The undersides of the leaves are a silvery white.

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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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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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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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Bearberry Cotoneaster

Flower: Flowers appear in abundance. They are small, white and have purple anthers. Fruit: Bright red, solitary berries, up to 7mm in diameter. The fruit persist well into the winter months. Leaves: A crawling, dense, dwarf (usually) evergreen shrub. Small, leathery, elliptical, pointed leaves with a prominent midrib. The leaves turn purple in autumn.

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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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Thale Cress

Flower: Flowers, 2 to 4mm in diameter. Insect-pollinated. Fruit: Cylindrical pods. Shepherd's Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) is similar in appearance but the pods make them easy to tell apart. Leaves: A hairy annual flower with lanceolate leaves, sometimes toothed. The lower leaves form a basal rosette and the upper leaves are stalkless but do not clasp the stems.

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Common Dandelion

Flower: Leafless flower stalks contain a milky sap. Yellow flowers, often reddish underneath, up to 6cm wide. Fruit: The fruit is a pappus. A spherical head of white seeds, often known as a 'clock'. The seeds are called 'achenes'. Leaves: Variable in shape and having basal leaves only. They have deep lobed, long leaves, up to 30cm. The word 'dandelion' comes from the French for 'Lion's tooth'. This is referring to the shape of the le...

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Red-seeded Dandelion

Flower: Solitary pale yellow flowers, about 1 inch (2.5cm) across. Flowerheads are composed entirely of ray florets. Flowers have between 150 and 200 ray florets. The flowers of Red-seeded Dandelion are small... Fruit: The fruit of Dandelions are known as achenes. It consists of a single oblong seed tipped by a feathery ring of hairs. The Red-seeded Dandelion can be easily distinguished from Common Dandelion in that... Leaves: All leaves are basal. They measure up to 10 inches (25cm) long and 1.5 inches (4cm wide). Deeply pinnate, backward-pointing, triangular but narrow leaf lobes. The lobes are pointed at the tips. Perenn...

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Hart's-tongue Fern

Flower: No flowers. Ferns reproduce by spores. Fruit: Spores appear in conspicuous stripes on the underside of fronds. Leaves: Evergreen. Grows in clumps. Long, glossy tongue-shaped fronds with pointed tips. The 'scolopendrium' part of the botanical name means 'centipede' and comes from the markings on the underside of the fr...

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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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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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