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.

A notoriously poisonous plant, hemlock produces umbrella-like clusters of white flowers in summer. It can be found in damp places, such as ditches, riverbanks and waste ground.

A fierce pirate of the sea, the Arctic skua is renowned for stealing fish from other seabirds and dive-bombing anyone that comes near its nests. It breeds in the far north of Scotland and on the…

The eel is famous for both its slippery nature and its mammoth migration from its freshwater home to the Sargasso Sea where it breeds. It has suffered dramatic declines and is a protected species…

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 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 Yellow slug lives up to its name - its yellow body is mottled with grey patches. Often found in gardens and damp places in houses, it can be considered a pest, but is an important nutrient…

Buddleia is a familiar shrub, well-known for its attractiveness to butterflies. It is actually an introduced species, however, that has become naturalised on waste ground, railway cuttings and in…

A scrambling 'weed' of waste ground, fields and gardens, Common fumitory can be found on dry and disturbed soils. Its pink flowers appear over spring and summer.

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.