The stinging nettle is a familiar and common plant, often firmly rooted in our memories after our first, hands-on experience - a prickling irritation that's not forgotten easily!

A climbing plant of hedgerows and woodlands, White bryony produces greenish flowers in summer and red, shiny berries in winter. It is a poisonous plant.

Growing in tufts, Crested dog's-tail is a stiff-looking grass, with a tightly packed, rectangular flower spike. Look for it in lowland meadows and grasslands.

The common whelk is the largest sea snail found in UK seas, though you're more likely to find the dry balls of empty whelk egg capsules washed up in strandlines.

The fluffy, white heads of common cotton-grass dot our brown, boggy moors and heaths as if a giant bag of cotton wool balls has been thrown across the landscape!

Kissing under the mistletoe is a much-loved Christmas tradition, making this plant familiar to us all. It actually grows as a parasite on trees - look for it hanging off branches in large balls…