Sheep's-bit
With its fluffy-looking, light blue flower heads, sheep's-bit is a pretty plant of dry grassland, heaths and clifftops. Sometimes carpeting an area, it is popular with nectar-loving insects…
With its fluffy-looking, light blue flower heads, sheep's-bit is a pretty plant of dry grassland, heaths and clifftops. Sometimes carpeting an area, it is popular with nectar-loving insects…
Wild marjoram is actually the same aromatic herb as oregano which is used in Mediterranean cooking. Its small, pink flower clusters can be seen on chalk and limestone grasslands in summer.
The disc-shaped leaves and straw-coloured flower spikes of Navelwort help to identify this plant. As does its habitat - look for it growing from crevices in rocks, walls and stony areas.
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…
Forming mats of straight, bright green stems, Common spike-rush does, indeed, look like lots of tightly clustered 'spikes' near the water's edge of our wetland habitats.
The wasp spider is a great mimic - looking just like a common wasp keeps it safe from predators, even though it is not dangerous itself. It can be found in southern England, but is spreading north…
This striking black-and-white moth flies during the day in open woodlands, moorlands, and bogs. It's most common on Scottish moors.
Famed for its tapping in the middle of the night, supposedly heralding tragedy, the Deathwatch beetle is a serious wood-boring pest. In houses, their tunnelling can cause major damage.
A fluffy-looking grass of rough grassland, roadside verges and disturbed ground, False oat-grass is very familiar and often overlooked; in fact, it can help to stabilise dunes and shelter small…
Look for the pinky-white flowers of the dog-rose in summer, and its bright red rosehips in autumn. It is a scrambling shrub of hedgerows, woodlands and grasslands.
Looking a bit like a ragged version of a dandelion, mouse-ear hawkweed has lemon-yellow flower heads that are tinged with red at their outer edges. It likes grassy places with short turf and…
Sea-buckthorn is a spiny, thicket-forming shrub of sand dunes. It's native to the east coast of England but considered an invasive species elsewhere. It is most obvious in autumn when it is…