Spineless Acaena

Flower: Globular, petalless flowers. Fruit: Globular fruits usually spiny but often without spines. Leaves: A mat-forming perennial garden escape species. The pinnate leaves are purplish and feathery. Leaflets are toothed.

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Alexanders

Flower: Yellow-green umbel. Fruit: Globular, ridged, turning black on ripening. Leaves: Yellowish-green bluntly toothed, divided and glossy.

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Alkanet

Flower: Tight clusters of purplish-blue flowers. Roundish petals. Densely hairy. 5 stamens. Pollinated by bees. Fruit: Brown, 4-parted fruit, about 4mm long. The seeds ripen from July to October. Leaves: The leaves and stems are very hairy. The leaves are elliptic and wavy-edged. Not toothed. The leaves are alternate along both sides of the stems. Biennial or perennial.

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Yellow Alkanet

Flower: Small clusters of pale yellow flowers. The flowers are tubular in shape. Pollinated by bees. Fruit: The fruit is a nutlet. Leaves: Simple, hairy, oval to lance-shaped leaves. The leaves have untoothed margins. Perennial.

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False Alkanet

Flower: Small clusters of bright blue flowers with white centres. Fruit: The fruit is a nutlet. Leaves: A very hairy perennial plant with erect stems and alternate, lance-shaped leaves.

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Allseed

Flower: The small white flowers are short-stalked and appear inside branched clusters. The 4 petals are about as long as the toothed sepals. Fruit: The fruit is a globular seed capsule. Leaves: A well-branched annual with very small, pointed oval leaves. The leaves are in opposite pairs along the stems. Greyish-green, stiff, thread-like, forked, reddish stems.

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Four-leaved Allseed

Flower: The flowers are very small and appear inside forked heads. Fruit: The fruit is a near spherical capsule, just over 1mm in size. Leaves: A many-branched, hairless, winter annual plant with small oval to spoon-shaped leaves, in groups of 4 along the stems. Grows in sandy soils. In Britain, Four-leaved Allseed is most likely to be encoun...

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Sweet Alyssum

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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Green Amaranth

Flower: The flowers appear inside erect, terminal spikes, tassel-like in appearance. 5 pink sepals. Wind pollinated. Fruit: The fruit is a dry seed. Leaves: A hairless, yellowish-green plant similar in appearance to Common Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus) but with shorter, looser tassels. The leaves are oval and pointed. Annual. A garden escape, infreque...

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Common Amaranth

Flower: The inflorescence is a dense, tassel-like terminal spike. 5 sepals, no petals. Wind pollinated. Fruit: The fruit is a capsule, up to 2mm long. Black seeds. Seeds ripen from August to October. Leaves: A downy, greyish-green annual plant with pointed oval leaves. Short-stalked. Leaves measure up to 15cm (6 inches) long.

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Garden Anchusa

Flower: Tiny clusters of tubular, violet-blue flowers. Pollinated by bees. Fruit: The fruit is a small nutlet, 2 to 4mm across in size. The seeds ripen from July to September. Leaves: A clump-forming, bristly perennial plant with hairy, lance-shaped leaves. The stems are erect and branching. Garden escape species.

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Garden Angelica

Flower: Yellowish-green flowers, appearing in rounded umbels measuring 5 to 7cm across. 5 stamens per flower. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: Oval, flattened fruits with corky wings, measuring 6 to 8mm long. The seeds ripen in August and September. Leaves: An erect perennial with 2 to 3-pinnate leaves. Each leaf measure up to 60cm (24 inches) in length. Hollow, green stems (occasionally purple). Biennial.

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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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Apple-of-Peru

Flower: Solitary, bell-shaped, pale blue or violet flowers with a white throat. The flowers measure about 3 to 5cm across and only open for a few hours per day. Fruit: The fruit is a brown berry enclosed inside the net-veined sepals. The berries each measure about 1.5cm in diameter. Leaves: An annual flower with pointed oval leaves up to 10cm (4 inches) long. The leaves are toothed and have wavy edges.

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Jerusalem Artichoke

Flower: The bright yellow, sunflower-like flowers are between 5 and 10cm (2 to 4 inches) in diameter. 10 to 20 ray florets and at least 60 disc florets. Pollinated by flies and bees. Fruit: The fruit is dry, hairy and one-seeded. The seed is dark brown and mottled. It is about 5mm long and 2mm wide. The seeds ripen in November. Leaves: Rough, hairy leaves which appear in opposite pairs. They are broadly ovate with a pointed tip. The upper leaves are smaller and more narrow. Similar in appearance to Perennial Sunflower (Helianthus x ...

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Dragon Arum

Flower: A spectacular, gigantic flower which consists of a dark purple spathe and spadix. Fruit: Clusters of green berries which are wrapped tightly together around the top of the erect stem. The berries later turn red. Leaves: Large palmately lobed leaves, occasionally streaked white. The stems are purple-spotted. Deciduous perennial.

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Asarabacca

Flower: Pale yellowish-green bell-shaped flowers. No petals. 3 maroon sepals. The flowers are usually hidden beneath the leaves. 12 stamens. Pollinated by flies. Fruit: A 6-parted capsule. Leaves: The leathery, dark green leaves are glossy and kidney-shaped. The leaves measure about 3 inches (7.5cm) across. Evergreen perennial. Asarabacca has a preference for growing in Beech woodland.

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Garden Asparagus

Flower: Bell-shaped, pale green or yellowish flowers. Pollinated by bees. Fruit: A small, red berry, up to 1cm across. The seeds ripen in September and October. Leaves: A perennial herb with an erect, single stem. The shoots are sometimes known as 'spears'.

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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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Lemon Balm

Flower: Flower spikes. The small white, inconspicuous flowers reach 1.5cm in diameter. Pollinated by bees. Fruit: A brown seed capsule. In fruit from August to October. Leaves: A hairy perennial with lemon-green leaves. The oval, pointed leaves darken with age. The leaves are simple, wrinkly and toothed. They are arranged along the stems in opposite pairs.

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Small Balsam

Flower: Pale yellow flowers. The 2 lowermost petals are partly fused together, forming a lip. The upper petals form a helmet. 5 stamens. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: A pod-like fruit capsule. Leaves: An annual plant of shady places. The leaves are alternate along the branches. The leaves are oval, dense-toothed and pointed. The upper leaves are the largest. Erect stems.

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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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Mrs Wilson's Barberry

Flower: Clusters of yellow flowers. Possibly could be confused with Darwin's Barberry (Berberis darwinii) but that has orange flowers. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: Small red berries. The berries appear from August to November. Leaves: Mrs Wilson's Barberry is a very spiny shrub with arching branches. The leaves are narrow and pear-shaped. They are silvery green at first but by autumn the leaves have matured into a shade of red or d...

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Common Barberry

Flower: Hanging yellow flowers. Insect-pollinated. Fruit: Red, globular berries. The seeds ripen in September and October. Leaves: Deciduous shrub whose leaves appear from March to November. The leaves are simple, oval and spiny-toothed.

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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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