A short, but pretty plant of unimproved grasslands, the Green-winged orchid gets its name from the green veins in the 'hood' of its flowers. Look for it in May and June.

The yellow, star-like flowers of bog asphodel brighten up our peat bogs, damp heaths and moors in early summer, attracting a range of pollinating insects.

The pretty-in-purple Pasqueflower is now a rare plant in the UK, restricted to just a few chalk and limestone grasslands. Steeped in legend, it flowers at Easter, so is known as the 'anemone…

Pepper saxifrage is a classic plant of unimproved hay meadows and roadside verges. It's upright, branching stems carry umbrella-like clusters of creamy-yellow, flowers in summer.

The true fox-sedge is a rare and threatened plant in the UK. It relies on lowland floodplain meadows and damp habitats, which are rapidly disappearing. Look for reddish-brown flowers in summer.…

A very rare ant, once found on heathland across southern England but now restricted to Scotland and Devon. It constructs distinctive thatched nests in open areas at the edges of scrub, and forages…

As its name suggests, the Marsh violet likes damp spots, such as marshes, bogs and wet woods. It is a low-growing plant with kidney-shaped leaves and pale lilac flowers.

Wild privet is a shrub of hedgerows, woodlands and scrub, but is also a popular garden-hedge plant. It has white flowers in summer and matt-black berries in winter that are very poisonous.

Broom is a large shrub of heaths, open woodlands and coastal habitats. Like gorse, it has bright yellow flowers, but it doesn't have any spines and smells of vanilla.

Groundsel is a 'weed' of cultivated and disturbed ground like field edges, roadside verges and waste ground. It has clusters of yellow flowers that turn fluffy and white as the plant…

The small, yellow flowers and woolly appearance of kidney vetch make this plant easy to spot. Look for it growing low to the ground on sand dunes, chalk grasslands and cliffs in summer.