Great reedmace is familiar to many of us as the archetypal 'bulrush'. Look for its tall stems, sausage-like, brown flower heads and green, flat leaves at the water's edge in our…

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…

Parsley fern lives up to its name - the pale green fronds form in clusters among rocks and look just like parsley. Look out for it in upland areas, particularly in Wales and Cumbria.

The vast, green mats that sometimes cover the surface of still water, such as ponds, flooded gravel pits and old canals, are actually Common duckweed. A tiny, single plant, it groups together to…

Despite its name, Spurge laurel is not a laurel - it just looks like one! It has glossy, dark green leaves and black, poisonous berries, and can be found in woodlands in southern England, in…

The pyramidal orchid lives up to its name - look for a bright pinky-purple, densely packed pyramid of flowers atop a green stem. It likes chalk grassland, sand dunes, roadside verges and quarries…

The fearsome common backswimmer hunts insects, tadpoles and fish. It uses its oar-like legs to swim upside-down under the water's surface where unsuspecting prey can be found.

Found in ponds and marshes, the fragile look of the Common water-measurer belies its fierce nature. A predator of small insects, it uses the vibrations of the water's surface to locate its…

An introduced species, Common evening-primrose is now naturalised on waste ground, roadside verges and railway cuttings. It has long been used to produce the herbal remedy, evening-primrose oil.…