The Sitka spruce was introduced into the UK from North America in the 19th century. It has been widely planted as a forestry tree; look for classic needle-like leaves and pale brown, domed cones…

A fleshy herb of the wet margins of brooks, streams and ditches, Brooklime can be seen all year-round and provides shelter for tadpoles and sticklebacks.

Introduced from Japan in the 19th century, Japanese knotweed is now an invasive non-native plant of many riverbanks, waste grounds and roadside verges, where it prevents native species from…

Water figwort is a tall plant of riverbanks, pond margins, damp meadows and wet woodlands. Its maroon flowers are pollinated by the Common wasp.

The delicate, tube-like, violet-blue flowers of Skullcap bloom from June to September in damp places, such as marshes, fens, riverbanks and pond margins.

These non-native limpets arrived from America in the 19th century and are now widespread in the UK. They form stacks and have a specially adapted shell which, when flipped upside down, looks like…

Goose barnacles often wash up on our shores attached to flotsam after big storms.

Introduced into the UK in the 19th century, the diminutive little owl can now be seen along hedgerows, on farmland and in parkland across England and Wales. It often perches on a pole or rock,…