Arrowhead

Flower: White with purple patch at the base of each flower, 3 petals with purple anthers. Fruit: Globular fruiting heads. Leaves: Large and distinctive arrow-shaped leaves. Arrowhead is named after the shape of its leaves.

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Amphibious Bistort

Flower: Pink compact spike, 5 petals. Fruit: Dark brown to black, round, flattened achene. Leaves: The alternate leaves are short-stalked and with tapered bases. The leaf blades are long, narrow, hairy and sometimes tinged red. The submerged leaves are slightly different; they are hairless, have ro...

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Brooklime

Flower: Small deep blue flowers emerging in pairs from leaf axils, 4 petals. Fruit: A nearly spherical brown capsule, splitting open when mature. Up to 4mm in diameter. Leaves: Shiny and leathery, succulent leaves that are round to oval and have bluntly toothed margins. Their stems are often tinted reddish-brown.

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Common Bulrush

Flower: Tiny and densely packed, forming a chocolate-coloured sausage-shaped spike. Fruit: Fruits are minute. They are produced from the female flowers and are covered in fluffy down. Leaves: Stalkless, long-sheathed, alternate leaves which are mainly produced at the bottom of the stem. Pale blue-green and linear.

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Branched Bur-reed

Flower: Globular spiky green flowerheads in a branched spike. Fruit: Spherical burr-like, spiky. Leaves: Broad, 3-sided leaves, similar in appearance to Iris leaves. Floating leaves are rare.

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Common Water Crowfoot

Flower: Solitary flower with 5 white petals, up to 2cm. Fruit: Roundish-oval seed head located in the centre of the flower. Leaves: Leaves are either floating, submerged, or both. The floating leaves are deep-lobed, kidney-shaped and 3-lobed with the side lobes being wider than the central lobe. The submerged leaves are thread-lik...

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Water Dock

Flower: Triangular green tepals in whorls along an upright stem. Fruit: Round to triangular winged fruit. Leaves: Very large broadly lanceolate leaves. Both ends tapered, sharp-tipped. The lower leaves are long-stalked.

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Common Duckweed

Flower: Petalless and minute, rarely appearing. Fruit: Small and insignificant. Slightly winged and bladder-like in shape. Leaves: Pale, flat and oval leaves which float on the surface of still water. Each plant has 2 leaves and a single root. The leaves are called 'fronds'. Spreads very quickly, covering the whole surface of the...

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Water Horsetail

Flower: Flowerless. Horsetails reproduce by spores. Fruit: Ovoid cones sit on top of the fertile main stems. The cones are technically known as 'strobili' and reach a maximum of 1.5 cm in length. Leaves: The green furrowed stems have 10 to 30 very shallow grooves. Whorls of leaf-like branches appear along the erect single main stem.

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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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Arum Lily

Flower: Large and showy. White funnel-shaped tubular flower with a slit down one side. Yellow or orange spike called a spadix sits in the centre of the outer white sheath. Fruit: An oval, orange berry-like fruit, up to 1cm across. Leaves: Large, green, broadly oval, glossy leaves.

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Floating Pennywort

Flower: Tiny, pale green-white, 5 petals, in umbels. Not often seen in flower. Fruit: Elliptical or round fruit, up to 3mm long. Flattened and lightly ribbed, divided into two halves. Leaves: Rounded kidney-shaped leaves, growing compactly together and densely covering the water upon which it floats. Leaf margins are smooth or scalloped with 3 to 7 lobes.

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Broad-leaved Pondweed

Flower: Green flower spikes on long stalks. Fruit: A spathe, up to 8cm long. The spathe is densely packed with the fruit. Leaves: The broad, oval, opaque and leathery floating leaves are variably green in colour. They have pale veins which run parallel to the midrib from their bases to the leaf tips. The leaves have stipules and...

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Compact Rush

Flower: Tight clusters of tiny dark brown flowers, one cluster per stem near to the top. Fruit: A capsule which contains at least 3 seeds. Leaves: Tussock-forming and overwintering. Very linear, wire-like leaves. Hollow, green, erect leaves, all of which are borne at ground level.

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Jointed Rush

Flower: Greenish-brown with the outer tepals only being sharply pointed. Fruit: A dark brown capsule with 3 sections that tapers into a point, up to 4mm long. Wrinkled. Contains many oval, brown seeds. Leaves: Wire-like, cylindrical, unbranched and smooth stems.

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Lesser Spearwort

Flower: Glossy yellow, solitary, cup-shaped flowers, up to 2cm wide. 5 petals per flower, many stamens. The petals are longer than the sepals. Fruit: Small elliptical, brown nutlets. Leaves: A perennial, scrambling and hairless plant. Alternate, simple leaves. Its stems are often tinged red and its variable leaves are and linear or spear-shaped (hence its name 'spearwort'). The veins run ...

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White Water Lily

Flower: White floating flowers only opening when sunny. Yellow stamens. The largest flower in the UK with approximately 20 petals. Up to 20cm wide. Fruit: The fruits are green, fairly round and warty. Leaves: The floating, broadly oval leaf reaches a maximum of about 30cm in diameter. The leaves of White Water Lily are slightly smaller than that of Yellow Water Lily.

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Yellow Water Lily

Flower: Yellow flower usually appearing on an upright stalk out of the water, up to 8cm wide. Sepals normally longer than petals. 6 petals. Fruit: A fleshy green capsule. Leaves: Large, floating, oval to circular leaves. The diameter of the leaves is a maximum of 40cm. The leaves of Yellow Water Lily are slightly larger than that of White Water Lily.

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Common Water Starwort

Flower: Tiny green, petalless and solitary insignificant flowers which appear at the leaf bases, sometimes in pairs. Male flowers with yellow anthers. Male and female flowers are separated. Fruit: Near-spherical fruits, roughly 2mm in diameter. The fruit is narrowly winged. Leaves: Untoothed leaves which are arranged in opposite pairs along the stems. The leaves can be either submerged or floating. Floating leaves are egg-shaped with 5 to 7 veins, 1cm wide and 2cm long. Submerge...

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Watercress

Flower: 4 white petals, up to 7mm, forming clusters at the top. Fruit: A linear, straight or slightly curved pod, up to 3cm long. The reddish-brown, oval seeds are arranged in two rows. Leaves: The leaves are pinnate with between 3 and 9 narrowly oval leaflets. Terminal leaflets are the largest leaflets. The leaves are not hairy and reach a maximum of 4 inches long. The stems and leaves may ...

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Common Water-plantain

Flower: Whorls of tiny pale lilac flowers loosely clustered on tall leafless stems. 3 green sepals and 3 ragged-edged white petals, sometimes pinkish or purplish. Fruit: Clusters of one-seeded nutlets (achenes), up to 2.5cm in length. Leaves: The majority of the leaves are above the surface of the water but there are some submerged leaves. Very long stalked, up to 25cm. The untoothed leaves are oval with cordate bases.

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Canadian Waterweed

Flower: Inconspicuous tiny whitish flowers which are seldom seen. Male and female flowers are on separate plants. Fruit: An ovoid capsule which ripens underneath the surface of the water. 6mm in diameter and filled with numerous seeds. Leaves: Densely packed whorls of oval leaves around the stems. The leaves are in whorls of 3 and 4.

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