The Carline thistle produces distinctive brown-and-golden flower heads that look like a seeded thistle. These flowers are attractive to a wide range of butterflies, including the very rare Large…

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…

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.

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!

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.

As its name suggests, quaking-grass can be seen quivering or 'quaking' in a breezy, summer wildflower meadow. Its purple-and-green, heart-shaped flower heads hang from delicate stems.…

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…

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…

Tansy is an aromatic plant of rough grassland, riverbanks and verges that has button-like, yellow flower heads. It is the main foodplant of the rare Tansy Beetle, now found at only two places in…

Wood melick is a slender, drooping grass that grows in dense patches in ancient woodlands and along shady banks. It has nodding flower heads, with brown, egg-shaped spikelets that contain the…