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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Fragrant Agrimony

Flower: The inflorescence is a long flower spike. The flowers are about 1cm across with notched tips. 12 stamens. 2 pistils. Fruit: Bell-shaped, burred fruit with hooks that are down-turned. The fruit is about 1cm long. Leaves: No basal leaves. The stem leaves are stalked and alternate up the stems. They are pinnate leaves with 3 to 7 pairs. Leaflets are lance-shaped and large toothed. The leaves are more deeply toothed than...

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Common Alder

Flower: Yellow and pendulous (male catkins). Green and oval (female catkins). Male and female catkins present on same tree, and grouped in clusters of 3-8 on each stalk. Fruit: In winter the catkins turn into hard, dark, cone-like fruit which eventually release the seeds. Leaves: Deciduous. Round, dark green, leathery, smooth, serrated edges.

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Italian Alder

Flower: The male and female flowers appear on separate trees. The yellowish-brown male catkins are pendulous and borne in clusters of 3 to 6 and are up to 10cm long. The male catkins appear before the leaves ... Fruit: The female flowers become woody and turn into the cone-like fruit. The fruit are overwintering. The cones are larger than most other Alder cone species, up to 2.5cm long. Leaves: A deciduous tree with dark green, alternate, glossy, heart-shaped leaves and finely serrated margins. Cordata (see Botanical Name) means 'heart-shaped'.

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Green Alkanet

Flower: Bright blue, 8-10mm, 5 petals. Fruit: 4 nutlets per flower, each having a ridged surface. Leaves: Hairy, broad, alternate leaves with deep veins and pointed tips. Leaves are smaller and without stalks towards the top.

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Wood Anemone

Flower: White, often tinged with pink, 5-10 sepals (the white petals are actually sepals). Fruit: One-sided winged nuts called achenes, containing the seeds. Wind pollinated. Leaves: Simple, deeply cut leaves with a red stem.

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Wild Angelica

Flower: White, often tinged with pink, umbels up to 15cm across. Fruit: Flattened, round, oval papery wings. Dispersed by the wind. Leaves: Alternate, long-stemmed. Triangular 3-pinnate leaves. Leaflets are sharp-tipped and have serrated margins. Not hairy.

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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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Variegated Yellow Archangel

Flower: Butter yellow flowers, in whorls up the stem. Fruit: Clusters of bell-shaped nutlets. Leaves: Dark green, long-stalked and heart-shaped. Mottled with conspicuous silvery blotches.

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Bog Arum

Flower: A greenish white spadix, up to 8cm long. Pollinated by flies. Fruit: Red berries in autumn. The seeds ripen in August and September. Leaves: A deciduous, evergreen perennial which grows in shallow water. The broadly heart-shaped leaves are dark green and glossy.

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Common Ash

Flower: Petalless with tufts of purple-to-black stamens which turn green later. Fruit: Numerous hanging winged seeds which form clusters. The fruits of this tree are often called 'keys'. Leaves: Deciduous. Britain's only native tree with opposite, pinnate leaves. Leaflets are dark green and toothed.

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Mountain Ash

Flower: White with cream-coloured anthers. Fruit: Tight clusters of red berries. Leaves: Deciduous. Similar to Common Ash leaves. Pinnate with toothed leaflets.

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Aspen

Flower: Male and female catkins are green, and are borne on different trees. Both male and female catkins look alike, however later on the male catkins become dangly and the females remain firm. Fruit: Long hanging conical capsules develop on the catkins. Leaves: Deciduous. The stalked leaves of the Aspen are heart-shaped with wavy edges and have whitish undersides. Their shape causes them to shiver and tremble in the wind, giving the tree a distinctive quiver...

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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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Yellow Azalea

Flower: Funnel-shaped, bright yellow flowers, up to 5cm across. Flowers appear together in dense clusters of 5 to 25. Pollinated by insects. Fruit: A dry, woody seed capsule, containing several minute seeds. Leaves: A bushy deciduous shrub whose leaves are oblong and turn red, purple or orange in autumn. Commonly seen as a garden plant in the British Isles but sometimes seen bird-sown in woods and on moorland. Th...

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Himalayan Balsam

Flower: Pink-purple to white. Fruit: The seed pods explode spectacularly and unexpectedly upon reaching maturity. Each pod contains many seeds and individual seeds can be projected as far as 5 meters away. This plant is notorious for bei... Leaves: Green elliptical leaves with serrated margins. Up to 8cm in length. The toothed edges are red in colour.

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Touch-me-not Balsam

Flower: Yellow, speckled red. 5 petals with broad lower lip and small upper hood. Fruit: Pendant capsules that burst open and scatter their seeds when touched. Leaves: Alternate, stalked and oval. Toothed margins.

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Arrow Bamboo

Flower: The flowers are never seen in the British Isles. Wind pollinated. Fruit: Never seen in fruit. Leaves: An evergreen perennial plant with large, long, linear, pointed, dark green, grass-like leaves. The stems are cane-like in appearance. Occasionally seen as a garden escape species growing wild in the U...

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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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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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Darwin's Barberry

Flower: Small orange bell-shaped, hanging in clusters. Fruit: Small dark purple to black berries which ripen in summer. Leaves: Small and oval. The edges are spiny.

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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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Hedge Bedstraw

Flower: Small clusters of white flowers which are pointed, 2-5mm. 4 stamens. Fruit: Small, wrinked nutlets. No bristles present. Leaves: 6 to 8 stalked leaves in whorls. Elliptical, untoothed and pointed with a small bristles at the tips.

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Common Beech

Flower: Male and female yellowish-green catkins grow together on the same tree. Male catkins dangle loosely from stalks at the end of twigs. Female catkins exist in pairs and are surrounded by a cup, later tu... Fruit: The nuts are called 'beech mast' and are brown 3-sided nuts with a tough bristly husk on the outside. Leaves: Deciduous. Pointed leaf buds. Oval, up to 9cm long and pale green and silky when young, turning dark green later in the year. Hairless. Leaves turn yellow or orange in autumn.

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