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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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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Rock Cotoneaster

Flower: White flowers with 5 spreading petals, up to 12mm across. Flowers are usually solitary. 20 dark purple anthers and 2 stigmas. Fruit: Bright red fleshy berries, similar to Wall Cotoneaster but richer in colour. Each berry contains two or more stones. Up to 1cm in size and appearing in October and November. Leaves: An evergreen, low-growing, woody shrub that carpets the ground. It is similar to Wall Cotoneaster in appearance but with less pointed leaves and it grows more prostrate. The alternate leaves are dark ...

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Blistered 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 name. The Blistered Cotoneaster is difficult to tell apart from the similar-looking Bullate Co...

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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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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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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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Feverfew

Flower: Clusters of daisy-like flowers on leafy stems, short wide rays. Individual flowers up to 2.5cm wide. Fruit: Seeds, ripening in August and September. Leaves: Feathery 1 to 2-pinnate leaves, often yellowish-green.

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Common Fig

Flower: Small and green, later turning into figs. Mainly pollinated by wasps. Fruit: Showy pear-shaped fruit, borne solitary, green to brown. The fruit develops within each receptacle and ripens in late summer. Leaves: Deciduous. Large broadly ovate alternate leaves, palmate 3 to 7-lobed with toothed margins. The upper leaf surface is dark green and has a texture similar to sandpaper. The lower leaf surface is pale ...

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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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Mexican Fleabane

Flower: Very pretty, many-flowered and multicoloured. Daisy-like flowers range from white to pink and purple, all together on the same plant. Underside of rays are often darker coloured. Fruit: Pale brown, oblong achene. The fine seeds are spread by the wind. Leaves: Dark green on the upper surface of the leaves. Paler beneath. The lower leaves are 3-lobed. The linear upper leaves are sometimes toothed slightly. Short-stalked.

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Field Forget-me-not

Flower: 5 grey blue petals, sometimes pink, slightly concaved. Fruit: Glossy, egg-shaped and winged. Starting of yellow-brown and later turning blackish once ripe. Leaves: Covered in soft hairs all over. Basal leaves are stalked. These stalks are winged. The stem leaves are alternate and stalkless. The leaves are lanceolate with an entire margin.

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Common Fumitory

Flower: Pink with dark tips, growing in stalked spikes, tubular and 2-lipped. Individual flowers up to 1cm and usually more than 20 in one spike. Fruit: Long globular achene, 1 seeded, notched tip. Leaves: Bipinnate leaves with narrowly lobed, slender leaflets. The leaves alternate along their stems and are stalked.

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Beaked Hawksbeard

Flower: Like all Hawksbeards, the flowers have sepal-like bracts with one row conspicuously above the other. The bottom row of bracts are much shorter than the uppermost and they splay outwards. The flowers a... Fruit: The seeds are long and slender (beaked). Perhaps the best way to identify and distinguish the different species of Hawksbeard are by the shape and size of their seeds. The flower buds can often be spl... Leaves: The leaves are variable in shape but generally dandelion-like in appearance. They are sharply pinnately lobed and the end lobe is the largest. The leaves partly clasp their stems and the stems are oft...

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Smooth Hawksbeard

Flower: Species of Hawksbeard are distinguishable by the two rows of bracts on their flowerheads. Smooth Hawksbeard is the commonest Hawksbeard in the UK. Its bright yellow dandelion-like flowers are often re... Fruit: Dandelion-like seeds (pappuses). Leaves: A small and slender annual flower with numerous shiny basal leaves which are pinnately lobed. The only hairless Hawksbeard, hence the flowers name.

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Grey-headed Hawkweed

Flower: Yellow dandelion-like flowers. Fruit: Unbeaked fruit with a feathery light brown pappus. Leaves: Alternate leaves with distinctive, large-toothed edges. Each forward-pointing tooth is widely spaced and ends in a sharp point.

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