Scottish Asphodel

Flower: Small, greenish-white or yellowish-white flowers in a short but dense terminal spike. 6 petals (3 are actually sepals). 6 stamens. Fruit: A roundish, 3-parted, greyish capsule, up to 3mm long. The seeds are tiny. Leaves: Flattened, hairless, iris-like leaves. Most leaves are basal leaves. They are stalkless and toothless. Up to 3 alternate stem leaves. The leaves are 3 to 7-veined. The erect stems are flat and hairles...

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Alpine Bartsia

Flower: Dark purple flowers with leafy bracts. The flowers are occasionally yellow. 4 stamens. Fruit: A dark brown, oval capsule. 2 valves. Leaves: A downy perennial plant with purple-tinted, oval, untoothed leaves. Unstalked. The leaves appear together in opposite pairs along the stems.

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White Beak-sedge

Flower: White spikelets, appearing in flat clusters. Clusters measure about 1 inch (2.5cm) across. Clusters are positioned at the top of erect stalks, each with a leaf-like bract below it. Spikelets within th... Fruit: Flower spikelets turn brown on maturing and each produces 1 or 2 flattened, oval seeds. Surrounding the base of the fruit are several hooked bristles. Leaves: Grows in tight clumps, with 3-angled stems at the tips but flat at their bases. The hairless leaves are alternately arranged along the stems. Perennial.

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Great Marsh Bedstraw

Flower: The flowers are small and white, appearing together in clusters. The flowers are larger than those of Marsh Bedstraw (Galium palustre). Fruit: The fruit is a wrinkled nutlet. Leaves: The leaves are configured in whorls of 4 to 6. They have rough margins. The stems are without prickles. This is a perennial species, sometimes growing in water. It can be found throughout all parts of...

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Fen Bedstraw

Flower: Loose clusters of white flowers. Each flower is up to 3mm across. Yellow anthers. Fruit: The fruits are low-domed warts. Leaves: Whorls of leaves in groups of 6 to 10. Leaves are one-veined. The linear leaves have prickly edges. Similar to Marsh Bedstraw (Galium palustre) but Fen Bedstraw often has rougher, purplish leaves. Fen...

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Marsh Bedstraw

Flower: Small, white flowers. Up to 4mm in diameter. Fruit: Small, globular fruit, slightly wrinkled. Leaves: Rough-margined leaves, in whorls of 4 to 6. Stems are without prickles. The similar-looking Fen Bedstraw (Galium oliginosum) does not have prickles on the stems. Perennial which sometimes grows in wat...

Video: Marsh Bedstraw filmed in Capernwray, Lancashire on the 17th July 2022.

 

Music credits
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN11002...

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Velvet Bent

Flower: Purplish spikelets and awned florets. Spikelets measure between 2 and 2.5mm in length. Fruit: The fruit is a caryopsis. A type of dry, one-seeded fruit. Leaves: The leaves are very narrow. They each have a jagged, long, pointed ligule.

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Hedge Bindweed

Flower: Usually pure white but occasionally pink with 5 white stripes, up to 6cm, trumpet-shaped. Sepals often purple tinged and only half-covered by two large bracts. Often hybridizes with Hedge Bindweed mak... Fruit: A capsule which contains 1 to 4 seeds, rarely more than 1cm long. Leaves: Long stalked, arrow-shaped leaves and sharp-tipped, not hairy. The bases of the leaves have angled lobes.

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Downy Birch

Flower: Male and female catkins appear on the same tree. Erect female catkins are shorter and green. Male catkins hang loosely in groups of 2-4. Often hybridizes with Silver Birch making identification tricky. Fruit: Small dry one-sided winged fruits, called 'achenes'. Leaves: Deciduous. Ovate, pointed and with serrated margins. Light green in spring, darkening and then turning yellow or orange in autumn. Leaves are often hairy underneath.

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Silver Birch

Flower: Male yellow catkins hang loose, female catkins much shorter and erect. Often hybridizes with Downy Birch making identification somewhat difficult at times. Fruit: The female catkins develop hundreds of winged seeds as their fruit. Leaves: Deciduous. Stalked and triangular in shape with doubly serrated margins. Leaves turn yellow in autumn. Downy Birch leaves have got serrated margins only, not doubly serrated as with Silver Birch.

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Dwarf Birch

Flower: Greenish-brown erect catkins, up to 1.5cm long. Smaller than the catkins of Downy Birch and Silver Birch. Wind pollinated. Fruit: The fruit is a small winged achene (a type of one-seeded, dry fruit). In fruit from July to September. Leaves: Small, round, hairless and deeply toothed. They are downy when young. Up to 1.5mm across. The leaves turn yellow, orange or red in autumn.

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Large Bittercress

Flower: 4 white petals which are very occasionally purple, up to 12mm wide. Flowers clustering together at the top of the plant. 6 stamens, purple anthers. Fruit: Long, thin, flat seed pods that eventually split open lengthwise. Leaves: Without a basal rosette, as with Hairy Bittercress and Wavy Bittercress. The basal leaves are long-stalked and the upper stem leaves are very short-stalked. The leaves run alternate along the stem and...

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Bittersweet

Flower: 5 bright purple bent back petals, anthers forming a bright yellow pointed cone, up to 1.5cm across. Sepals and stalks are also sometimes purple. Fruit: Clusters of round green berries, later turn yellow, orange or bright red. Leaves: Alternate, pointed and oval. Often with one or more pairs of basal ovate lobes, or leaflets at the base.

Video: Bittersweet filmed growing in a hedge on the 7th July 2022.

 

Music credits
Prelude No. 21 by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/preludes/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/.

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New Forest Bladderwort

Flower: 2-lipped. The airborne flowers appear on stalked, leafless stems. The flowers of New Forest Bladderwort have a broad, flat lip. Fruit: The fruit is a capsule. Leaves: A carnivorous aquatic plant whose leaves are comprised of numerous thread-like segments. Its minute bristles and small bladders trap insects as a means of obtaining food. In autumn, the bladders fill ...

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Lesser Bladderwort

Flower: Pale greenish-yellow, up to 8mm across. The flowers have a short, blunt spur. The flowers look similar to those of Snapdragon. Fruit: The fruit is a round capsule. Leaves: A small, carnivorous, perennial flower with leaves that alternate along the stems. This is the smallest of the British Bladderwort species. The leaves are sometimes bristled. The bladders trap small a...

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Nordic Bladderwort

Flower: Small pale yellow flowers, similar looking to Snapdragon flowers. Fruit: A globular capsule. Leaves: An aquatic carnivorous plant, often tinged red.

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Bogbean

Flower: The flowers of Bogbean are distinctive and star-shaped. They are held above the water inside dense, erect flower spikes. The flowers have white fringed petals and are covered in conspicuous white hair... Fruit: The fruit is a spherical, many-seeded capsule. Leaves: An aquatic perennial plant with leaves projecting to 30cm above the surface of the water in which it floats. Large trefoil leaves with broadly oval leaflets, similar in appearance to those of Broad Be...

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Black Bog-rush

Flower: Small, dark brown, flattened spikelets. Fruit: An achene surrounded by a hard white coating. Leaves: Thread-like, unbranched, erect and grows in tight clumps straight out of the ground. The leaves have inrolled margins.

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Alder Buckthorn

Flower: Star-shaped pale green or white flowers. Flowers are up to 4mm in diameter. 5 stamens. Fruit: Green berries, turning red, then later purplish-black. The berries ripen in September. Leaves: Alder Buckthorn is thornless (unlike other Buckthorns). Their leaves are untoothed and alternate along the branches. Each leaf has between 6 and 10 pairs of veins. The leaves turn yellow or red in aut...

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Purging Buckthorn

Flower: Greenish-yellow tiny flowers, unstalked, appearing in dense clusters. 4 petals. Male and female flowers appear on separate trees. Fruit: The female flowers turn into green berries, later turning purplish-black. Leaves: Deciduous. Oval, pointed and finely toothed. In autumn, the leaves turn yellow and brown.

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Lesser Bulrush

Flower: Tiny and densely packed, sausage-shaped, spongy, brown flowers. Similar to Common Bulrush (typha latifolia) but the flowers are a paler brown. Also, Lesser Bulrush often has its male and female flower... Fruit: A dry, cottony / hairy nutlet (called an achene). Leaves: Long, thin, linear leaves, similar to Common Bulrush except that they are narrower and paler. The leaves are 1 to 2cm wide. Common and Lesser Bulrush can hybridise to produce Typha angustifolia x lati...

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Water Chickweed

Flower: 5 deeply notched petals. Flowers reach up to 1.5cm across. This species of Chickweed is best identified by its 10 bluish-coloured stamens. 5 styles. Fruit: An oval capsule. Leaves: A straggling perennial flower with fleshy, oval and pointed leaves. The leaves are sometimes wavy-edged and the lower leaves are stalked. The leaves are without hairs on the undersides but they are st...

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Marsh Cinquefoil

Flower: Maroon, star-shaped, 5 pointed petals, up to 3cm. Fruit: A small dry nutlet. Leaves: Greyish-green leaves, pinnate with 3 to 7 coarsely toothed leaflets. The undersides have a bluish hue and the upper sides are sometimes tinged red. The lower leaves are long-stalked.

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Wood Club-rush

Flower: Brown, ovate spikelets with olive green glumes. Wind pollinated. Fruit: A brown, 3-sided nutlet. Leaves: Patch-forming with triangular, leafy stems. The leaves are long, broad, flat and rough-edged.

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Columbine

Flower: Easily recognizable with its blue flowers, having 5 tubular petals with hooked spurs. The name Columbine is derived from the Latin name for dove 'columba' because from below, the petals are said to lo... Fruit: A dry pod which splits open upon ripening. Leaves: Green compound leaves with a bluish tinge, fan-like in appearance. The leaflets are round and notched.

Video: Columbine filmed by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal on the 14th June 2022.

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