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…

The Carline thistle produces distinctive brown-and-golden flower heads that look like a seeded thistle. These flowers are attractive to a wide range of butterflies, including the very rare Large…

A tall plant, Rosebay willowherb is a successful coloniser; it can form dense stands of bright pink flower spikes on disturbed ground, such as woodland clearings, verges and waste ground.

The tightly packed, thistle-like purple flower heads of common knapweed bloom on all kinds of grasslands. Also regularly called black knapweed, this plant attracts clouds of butterflies.

Look for the pretty, star-shaped, white flowers of Lesser stitchwort in woodlands and meadows, and along hedgerows and roadside verges in spring. Its flowers are smaller than those of Greater…

So-named for its spear-like leaves, Lesser spearwort can be found along the edges of ponds, lakes and streams, and in marshes and wet meadows. As a buttercup, it displays familiar, butter-yellow…

Wood melick is a slender, drooping grass that grows in dense patches in ancient woodlands and along shady banks. It has nodding flower heads, with brown, egg-shaped spikelets that contain the…

The common spotted-orchid is the easiest of all our orchids to see: sometimes, so many flowers appear together that they create a pale pink carpet in our woodlands, old quarries, dunes and marshes…

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…

Common laburnum is an introduced species, planted in parks and gardens. It is most recognisable in flower - its hanging bunches of yellow blooms giving it the name 'golden rain'. It is…

A good luck charm for travellers, Germander speedwell can be seen along roadsides, grassy lanes and hedgerows. Look for clumps of bright blue flowers.