This large, brown beetle can be seen swarming around streetlights in spring. They live underground as larvae for years and emerge as adults often in large numbers. Listen for their characteristic…

The tightly packed, thistle-like purple flower heads of common knapweed bloom on all kinds of grasslands. Also regularly called black knapweed, this plant attracts clouds of butterflies.

Greater burdock is familiar to us as the sticky plant that children delight in, frequently throwing the burs at each other. It actually uses these hooked seed heads to help disperse its seeds.

A common thistle of roadside verges, rough grassland and waste ground, the Musk thistle has large, purple, nodding flower heads that appear in summer. It is attractive to a wide range of insects…

The distinctive spiky, or 'bearded', green flower heads of wall barley appear from June to July and are easy to spot in an urban environment as they push their way up through pavements…

Wavy hair-grass lives up to its name: its fine, hair-like leaves and delicate flower heads can be seen shaking in the breeze of a windswept moorland or heathland.

The adder's-tongue fern is so-named because the tall stalk that bears its spores is thought to resemble a snake's tongue. An indicator of ancient meadows, it can be found mainly in…

The bar-tailed godwit winters in the UK in the thousands; look for it around estuaries like the Thames and Humber. In spring, the males display arresting breeding plumage, with brick-red heads,…

Chamomile releases a beautiful, apple-like scent when crushed. For this reason, it was used in Elizabethan times as a plant for lawns and seats! Today, it is scarce in the wild, its grassland…

Looking like a short Dandelion, but with a much rounder middle, Colt's-foot is a 'weed' of waste ground and field edges that brightens up early spring with its sunshine-yellow…