Narrow-leaved Arrowhead

Flower: Whorls of white flowers are produced. Fruit: Globular-shaped fruit. Leaves: The leaves are narrow and linear. Floating and submerged leaves are present. There are no aerial leaves. Perennial.

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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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Thistle Broomrape

Flower: Yellowish-purple flowers with purplish-red anthers. Fruit: An egg-shaped capsule. Leaves: A parasitic plant hosting on either Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense) or Woolly Thistle (Cirsium eriophorum). The plant appears to be leafless but the leaves are actually scale-like and discrete.

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Nodding Bur-marigold

Flower: Golden yellow, oval petals. The tips of the petals are either notched or pointed. Flowers have 5 stamens. The inner bracts are blunt and pale yellow. The green outer bracts of the flowers are long, na... Fruit: A dark brown, 4-angled seed, 6 to 8mm in length. The tip of the seed has 3 or 4 barbed awns attached to it. The fruits are narrower than those of Trifid Bur-marigold. Leaves: The leaves are narrow, measuring up to 6 inches (15cm) long and 1 inch (2.5cm) wide. They are stalkless and hairless. The leaves are opposite and clasp the stem. Leaf margins have some but few large t...

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Great Burnet

Flower: Oval burgundy-coloured flower heads on long stalks. Fruit: An achene which is a small one seeded dry nut. Leaves: Alternate, long-stalked, compound leaves with up to 7 pairs of oval, stalked and toothed leaflets.

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Warty Cabbage

Flower: Long-staked, sulphur yellow flowers, between 7 and 15mm in diameter. Pollinated by flies and bees. Fruit: The fruit are fairly distinctive being asymmetrically egg-shaped, shiny and warty. 5 to 10mm long. There are 2 to 4 seeds per fruit. The seeds mature from July to September. Leaves: An erect, hairy plant covered in warty bumps. Narrowly oval, dark green leaves which are pointed, toothed and lobed. The lower leaves are long-stalked. The very top leaves are not stalked at all. Bien...

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Coneflower

Flower: Daisy-like, golden yellow flowers with reflexed petals. Disc florets are brownish-green, forming a flattened cone, hence that name 'Coneflower'. Flowers measure between 7 and 14cm across. Pollinated b... Fruit: The fruit is an achene. The seeds mature from August to October. Leaves: A hairless perennial plant with deeply dissected leaves. They are lance-shaped and alternate along the stems. They are also toothed.

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Creeping Marshwort

Flower: Long-stalked white umbels. Numerous lower bracts are present. Fruit: Ridged fruits, similar to those of Fool's Watercress (Apium nodiflorum) but broader. Leaves: A prostrate creeping perennial plant with with deeply toothed leaves. It is deeper toothed than the leaves of Fool's Watercress.

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Coral Necklace

Flower: The tiny flowers appear in whorls and are borne in the leaf axils. The sepals and petals are both white. The sepals are much smaller than the petals. Fruit: The fruit is a capsule. Leaves: A hairless, trailing annual flower with blunt-tipped, oval leaves. The leaves appear together in pairs along the stems.

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Common Osier

Flower: Very short-stalked greenish catkins. Male catkins shorter than female. Fruit: The female catkins develop into the fruit as capsules which contain the seeds. Leaves: A deciduous tree. Dark green, slender leaves that are silvery-haired below. Up to 25cm long and 2cm wide.

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Milk Parsley

Flower: The white flowers appear in umbels measuring 3 to 8cm across. Petals are notched at their tips. The bracts of the flowers are all reflexed. Milk Parsley is the favourite food plant of the rare Swallow... Fruit: The flattened, oval fruits have 2 short styles and 2 pairs of wings. Leaves: A hairless biennial or short-lived perennial plant whose leaves are 2 to 4-pinnate. The leaflets are deeply cut with blunt tips.

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Black Poplar

Flower: Male and female catkins appear on separate trees. Males are red and females green. Wind pollinated. Fruit: The female flowers develop into the fruit. The fruit are capsules contain cottony seeds. The capsules burst open, leaving the seeds to fall to the ground in late summer. The fluffy seeds are sometimes... Leaves: A deciduous tree. Long-stalked and heart-shaped leaves tapering to a point, up to 12cm long. The edges of the leaves are finely serrated. Not hairy. The glossy leaves turn yellow in autumn.

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Ragged Robin

Flower: 5 deeply cleft pink or red petals, divided into 4 narrow lobes. Fruit: A globular, 5-valved capsule with an opening at the top. The capsule splits open in late summer to release its brown seeds. Leaves: Opposite, lance-shaped leaves. The stem leaves are stalkless but the basal leaves are stalked. 'Lychnis' (see botanical name) comes from the Greek 'lychnos' which means Lamp. This is in reference to t...

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Fen Ragwort

Flower: Flowers appear in clusters and are bright yellow and daisy-like. The flower have between 12 and 20 petals and measure about 3cm across. Fruit: The fruit is an achene with a pappus at one end. Leaves: This is a Ragwort with very distinctive leaves. They are stalkless, long and linear with slightly serrated or saw-toothed margins. The leaves are downy white beneath and clasp their stems. Erect stems...

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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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Soft Rush

Flower: Tight clusters of tiny greenish-brown flowers, one cluster per stem near to the top. Fruit: An oval capsule containing numerous seeds. Leaves: Thin, linear, wire-like leaves, tapering to a point with the flowers/fruit near the top.

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Baltic Rush

Flower: The flower clusters of Baltic Rush are smaller than those of the similar looking Hard Rush (Juncus inflexus) and Thread Rush (Juncus filiformis). Wind pollinated. Fruit: The fruit is a brown, 3-parted nutlet. Leaves: Long, wiry, cylindrical, unbranched and leafless stems, up to 3mm thick. The stems are green and ridged. Perennial.

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Common Snowberry

Flower: Tiny pink bell-shaped flowers in minute tight clusters. Fruit: Pure white globular berries which are borne clumped together. Leaves: A deciduous shrub. Roundish, green, simple, untoothed and short-stalked leaves, arranged in opposite pairs along the stems. Up to 4cm in length.

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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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Sulphurwort

Flower: Flowers are white (sometimes pink), appearing in umbels. The petals are notched at their ends. Usually no lower bracts are present. Fruit: Cylindrical fruits, not flattened in shape. The similar looking Corky-fruited Water Dropwort (Oenanthe pimpinelloides) has flattened fruits. Leaves: 1 to 3-pinnate leaves. All of the leaflets are narrow. Corky-fruited Water Dropwort which is similar in appearance has leaflets which are only narrow at the top of the plant. Usually found in damp mea...

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Annual Sunflower

Flower: Enormous golden yellow daisy-like flowers, up to 30cm wide. Flattish brown disc florets and pointed bracts. Fruit: An oval achene (type of dry, one-seeded fruit, not opening to release its seeds). Leaves: Very large, floppy, rough, heart-shaped leaves. The long-stalked leaves have coarsely toothed margins and alternate as they go up their stems. The leaves can be as large as 16 inches long and 8 inches...

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Floating Sweet-grass

Flower: The flowers are nodding. Clusters of elongated spikelets. Pointed lemmas. Wind pollinated. Fruit: Minute seeds. Leaves: The stiff-looking green leaves are frequently seen floating in water. Leaf blades have a long, sharply pointed ligule. Perennial.

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Purple Toothwort

Flower: The two-lipped, violet-purple flowers are 4 or 5cm in length. Flowers have long stalks. Fruit: A long, many-seeded, spherical capsule. Leaves: Leaves are absent. A parasitic plant which grows around the bases of trees and shrubs, in particular poplar and willow trees. Mat-forming perennial.

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