As its name suggests, Water dock likes damp places, such as the egdes of canals, ponds and rivers. It is a tall plant with large, greenish flower spikes.

Water-plantain is an aquatic plant of shallow water and muddy banks. In bloom over summer, it displays tall branches of loosely clustered, pale lilac flowers.

Hedge mustard is a tall plant with small, yellow flowers atop tough stems. It likes disturbed ground and grows in hedgerows and roadside verges, and on waste ground.

Often found basking on tall grasses, or buzzing between stems, the small skipper is a small, orange butterfly. It prefers rough grassland, verges and woodland edges.

A tall, domed tree of woodlands, hedgerows and parks, the introduced sycamore is familiar to many of us the 'helicopter' producing tree - its large, winged fruits appearing in autumn.…