Familiar as the bristly plant that easily hooks on to our clothing as we walk through the countryside or do the gardening, cleavers uses its hooks to help it climb and to disperse its seeds.

Heralding spring, a carpet of sunshine-yellow lesser celandine flowers is a joy to see on a woodland walk. Look out for it along hedgerows, in parks and even in graveyards, too, from March onwards…

Sometimes called 'Wild spinach', Sea beet can be cooked and eaten. It grows wild on shingle beaches, cliffs and bare ground near to the sea, as well as in saltmarshes.

The aromatic fragrance of Large thyme can punctuate a summer walk over a chalk grassland. It is an evergreen that grows low to the ground, with erect spikes of tiny, lilac flowers appearing over…