With its familiar features, the Field pansy is a delicate version of a garden favourite. Usually creamy-yellow in colour, it can be seen in fields and on roadside verges and waste ground.

At night, the pretty, white blooms of white campion produce a heady scent, attracting feeding moths. Look for this wildflower along hedgerows and roadside verges, and on waste ground.

The noble chafer is a rare and beautiful metallic-green beetle that can be found in traditional orchards. It is on the wing over summer, feeding on umbellifers. The larvae live in the decaying…

The turkeytail is a very colourful bracket fungus that grows throughout the year, but is at its best in the autumn. Its circular caps can be seen growing in tiers on trees and dead wood.

Look for the unusual flowers of lords-and-ladies in spring woodlands: a pale green sheath surrounds a spike of tiny, yellow flowers. This spike eventually forms a familiar, short stalk of striking…

Look for common toadflax on waste ground and grassland, and along roadside verges and hedgerows. Its yellow-and-orange flowers are tightly packed on a tall spike and have distinctive 'spurs…

Despite its name, Common knotgrass is not a grass, but is actually related to the docks. It has wiry stems that grow along the ground, and is a weed of waste ground, gardens and arable fields.

Once considered a weed of cornfields, the cornflower was nearly wiped out by intensive agricultural practices. Today, it can be found in deliberately seeded areas, and on roadside verges and waste…

Fennel has feathery leaves and open, umbels of yellow flowers. It was probably introduced by the Romans for culinary use, and is now a naturalised species of verges, waste ground and sand dunes.…

Groundsel is a 'weed' of cultivated and disturbed ground like field edges, roadside verges and waste ground. It has clusters of yellow flowers that turn fluffy and white as the plant…