The daisy is native to western, central and northern Europe but has spread and become established in most temperate regions throughout the world.

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A rare plant occurring sporadically in parts of middle and south-east Europe.

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Fairly common herb found growing in cultivated fields and waysides as the seeds require open ground in order to germinate successfully.

The petals bend backwards as the flower matures and the yellow middle part domes up and appears to swell. Although this flower resembles scented chamomile, it is not the species used for herbal remedies.

The plant produces an abundant number of flat seeds, without pappus (parachute), that remain viable in the soil for 2 to 3 years. It also spreads vegetatively by rhizomes.

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The ray florets (outer white petals) are much narrower than those of other daisy-type flowers. The roots grow to a depth of up to a meter. These flowers are typical 'pioneer plants' — the first to appear on newly exposed land surfaces (here damp fallow fields). An introduced plant — originating in North America.

This is a plant with a formidable number of synonyms, subspecies and variations.

It is a perennial with several stems per plant and spreading rhizomatous growth.

Stems and leaves have varying degrees of hairiness.

Leaves are evenly distributed along the erect stems in a spiral arrangement, larger in the middle section and near the base. They are 2-3 x subdivided (bipinnate, tripinnate), 2-3cm wide, 5-20cm long and distinctly feathery. The upper leaves are narrower and more compact than the lower ones.

The inflorescence forms a flat-topped cluster, superficially resembling an umbel containing numerous small, composite daisy-type flowers.

Each composite flower has 3-8 rounded ray florets, (equivalent to the petals of a simple flower), and numerous tubular disc-florets in the centre that are pollinated by a large variety of insects.

The plant has a strong sweet scent similar to that of chrysanthemums.

As a result of its resistance to drought and mineral-rich composition of its leaves, it has long been included in grass mixtures for grazing. In the past it was also cooked as a vegetable and its leaves dried and used as a herb.

Its uses in traditional medicine are multiple. It has astingent effects, staunching the flow of blood, and analgesic properties amongst many others.

This large plant has many erect branches with spiny leaves, rolled under at the margins, and spherical flower heads up to 6cm in diameter at the tips. The plant has a whitish grey appearance on account of the short, glandular (sticky) hairs on the leaves and ridged stem. The young flower also has a spikey, greyish-white appearance but when the florets progressively open, the petals are white and the anthers, joined as a rod around the long stigma, have a strongly contrasting blue colour giving the whole flower a blue haze.

It is a biennial, sometimes perennial herbaceous plant that originates in southern Europe, was introduced as a food plant for bees and has escaped into the wild. It grows in warm dry places, sheltered but sunny.

Flowers are pollinated mainly by bees and butterflies but it is a magnet for many insects including crickets, beetles and grasshoppers. The fruits are small cylindrical seeds (achenes) with a hairy pappus that aids wind dispersal.

This is an annual to biennial plant, native to Canada and USA. It was introduced to Europe in 17th century and has since spread and become naturalised almost all over the world.

Tall bushy appearance, inconspicuous flowers, more consicuous when hairy fruits are ripe. The stem is upright and only begins to branch in the upper flowering part which carries hundreds, sometimes thousands of tiny inconspicuous flowers.

The roots can reach up to a meter in depth helping the plant resist periods of drought.

The lower leaves form a dense rosette and are larger than the stem leaves, with roughly toothed, almost spiny, margins. They grow unstalked, 2-10cm long and up to 1cm wide in an alternate spiral up the stem, the lower ones withering as the plant matures. Both leaves and stems are hairy.

The flowers consist of structures like open-ended cups formed from several rows of narrow green bracts. The cup is 3-4mm long and from the narrow opening the ray petals of the enclosed florets emerge by only about 1mm. Each cup contains 50-60 florets; the surrounding whitish to pinkish ray florets are short, remaining more or less upright. The inner tubular disc florets are yellowish-green in colour.

After flowering, the seeds develop a hairy pappus that transforms the plant into a dirty-white fluffy mass. About 25.000 seeds, sometimes many times more, can be produced by a single plant and these are distributed widely by wind. They readily colonise waste or disturbed ground (ruderal areas), even prospering in cracks in asphalt but they are not invasive of natural habitats.

This is a rare and strictly protected plant

The large, silver-white flowers with yellowish-pink centres are almost stemless and grow in the centre of a spreading rosette of spiny leaves. The outer petals reflect UV light and are therefore highly visible to insects attracted to the flower for its nectar. The tubular florets attract long tongued insects, particularly bees and butterflies. The flowers only open in full sunshine, closing when the humidity is high.

The tap root can grow to a depth of as much as 1 meter, enabling the plant to withstand dry conditions and survive the winters.

The leaves are subdivided right up to the mid vein and sharply spiny.

The seeds possess a small parachute of hairs (pappus) that enables distribution by wind. The underside of the outer petals are hygroscopic and in damp weather they absorb humidity and cause them to close up, so protecting the florets on the disc during flowering and later the hairy seeds. The seeds will therefore only be released in dry weather. Also the spiny base of the flower can catch on animal fur and the seeds are then shaken out. At the end of the growing season flowers may detach from the rest of the plant and be blown across the open grassland, shedding seeds as they roll.

The naming of this species seems to be a subject of some confusion. It is exclusively a European and Asian species and so uncommon in this part of the world that it is considered endangered.

It is an erect thistle with prickly leaves and an everlasting-type flower with a ring of shiny straw-coloured petal-like bracts surrounding the fertile tubular florets.

The stem is smooth and reddish brown in colour, the prickly leaves arranged alternately along its length, terminating in a close circle of smaller leaves around the base of each flower, accentuating the starry appearance.

This is a perennial plant with a deep fleshy tap root extending up to a metre deep, making the plant very resistant to drought. At ground level is a short stem that gives rise to a rosette of leaves. If the plant is damaged, new rosettes can develop from fragments of root or stem making it a very difficult 'weed' to eradicate.

Its growth form is very adaptable; short and close to the ground in grazed or trampled areas, long leaves and tall flower stems in undisturbed meadows. First simultaneous flowering in April often results in whole fields of yellow and later, simultaneous fruiting in fields of white blowballs or 'dandelion clocks'.

The seed is a small, pointed 'achene' (a single-seeded type of 'nut') with a parachute of hairs ('pappus') that is blown away in the wind and can be distributed over large areas. This species is a prolific seed producer; a single plant can produce more than 5,000 seeds a year.

The flowers are used to make dandelion wine; 'Dandelion and Burdock' is a soft drink that has long been popular in the United Kingdom; young leaves can be used in salads; the roots have been used to make a coffee substitute (when baked and ground into powder).

This is a biennial plant, producing an edible fleshy root (salsify) during the first season that permits the plant to overwinter. In the second season the plant dies after flowering. The flower heads are large (3-5cm diameter) and the anthers have distinct black/brown stripy markings. Around noon each day the flower heads close, protected by a ring of green bracts almost as long as the petals. As a result you won't find flowers during the afternoon.

The flowers emerge before the leaves appear, each flower head carried on a fleshy stem with reddish-brown scales (see !D! button below).

The flower stems continues to grow as the seed heads develop and, when the parachute seeds are ready to be released, they can have reached over twice their original height, making wind dispersal, (amongst the taller growth by this time), more efficient.

The flowers are pale lemon yellow and the furry leaves grow in a rosette, close to the ground. The plant has creeping stems that produce clone rosettes along their length, so forming dense mats.

They are alleopathic plants, producing chemicals that are harmful either to herbivores, so discouraging them from being eaten, or to other plants, so discouraging competition.

The seeds have a small parachute-like pappus and are dispersed by wind.

The ray florets (outer yellow petals) are long and narrow, often appearing rather ragged. A perennial plant, favouring woodland edges and semi-dry grassland areas.

This plant is native to Europe and western Asia and favours damp habitats. It is often found growing on the banks of lakes or streams, as well as damp woodland clearings or meadows.

It is a perennial, spreading by its roots and forming dense clusters. Flowers develop at the tips of its branching stems reaching a maximum height of about 60cm.

Leaves are alternately arranged and clasp the stem. They are elongated-oval with pointed tips, broader base and often a wavy margin.

Stems contain a salty astringent liquid. Both stems and leaves may have a light covering of fine, woolly hairs.

This short-lived perennial plant that grows in open woodland areas and wayside and is native to central Europe.

The leaves are finely divided with a feathery appearance and the yellow, daisy-like flower heads bloom in profusion at the tips of thin angular stems and are up to 4cm in diameter when fully open.

As the flowers mature, the central disc with its tubular florets swells and becomes increasingly bulbous while the surrounding ray florets bend backwards in a typical 'chamomile' way.

Seeds are tiny (0.5mm long) with narrow wing-like projections but lacking a hairy plume or pappus.

The flower used to be used in the production of yellow and golden-orange dyes for fabrics such as wool and linen. The active substance is Luteolin and the plant is still cultivated for its colouring properties in some parts of Europe.

This is an annual plant, the first of the ragworts to appear in the spring. the young leaves stems and buds are covered with white cobweb or wooly hairs that get rubbed away and disappear as the plant ages. The leaves are elongated, indented, more or less spiky and with a compact, crinkled appearance. They clasp the stem directly at the base and partially surround it.

The plant usually carries large numbers of flower heads. As they open the buds have a curious caged appearance as the outer ring of petals open to form a ring of spiky bar-like structures before spreading into true ray petals. Each flower head is bright golden yellow, approx. 2.5cm in diameter.

The seeds are hairy and dispersed by wind.

The main flowering season is in spring but some individuals survive right through into autumn.

This is a herbaceous perennial plant, living for several years, spreading and multiplying by underground runners as well as by seed.

Its terminal clusters of yellow button-like flowers are very distinctive, each flower head consists of up to 100 tiny tubular florets. The tubes are short and so nectar can be reached by a multitude of insects, not only long-tongued ones. A ring of ray petals is missing and the seeds lack the pappus (hairy attachment) typical of most members of the Asteraceae family.

Other distinguishing features are the alternately arranged, fern-like leaves, 10 to 15 cm long with feathery subdivisions almost to the midrib and subdivided again into smaller lobes with saw-toothed margins. It is a 'compass plant', so-called because in full sunshine, its leaves turn directly towards the south.

Although the plant is toxic, it has a long history of use in folk medicine, for example to help rid the digestive system of worms. It has also been used to ward off insects and to pack around dead bodies inside coffins to discourage worms. The plant smells strongly of bitter, ethereal (volatile) oils, similar to camphor or rosemary. On account of the bitter taste these plants are usually avoided by grazing animals.

Groundsel is a small summer or winter annual plant with no particular flowering season. Given suitable mild conditions it can even flower in winter. Early flowering individuals grow from leaf rosettes that have survived the winter but it has no special overwintering organs such as those possessed by perennial plants.

The flowers, unlike most other ragwort (Senecio) species, possess no ray florets, all the tiny florets of the flower head are long tubular structures. The double layer of bracts enclosing the base of the elongated, tubular, flower head have distinct dark brown or black tips. Only the yellow tips of the tiny flowers are visible peeping out of the tube.

The dandelion-like seed head is often more conspicuous than the flowers themselves. The bracts turn backwards to reveal the flat base of the flower head, each seed carrying a hairy pappus of soft floating hairs that become sticky when damp helping it to adhere to passing animals. This permits an alternative method of spreading to the usual one of being carried on the wind.

This is a perennial plant, native to North America. It has a prolific production of seeds and also reproduces vegetatively by means of creeping rhizomes. It establishes itself so successfully in certain areas that it may suppress the local vegetation but nevertheless remains an important supplier of nectar and pollen for the bees at a time of year when other supplies are beginning to dwindle.

The reddish coloured, leafy stem is usually branched only in the upper section, smooth (not hairy), leaves with short stalks in the lower section, clasping the stem higher up.

Leaves are arranged alternately along the stem, narrow, lanceolate and usually with toothed margin, occasionally smooth.

Flowers are arranged thickly around the tips of the stems (not only on one side as with the Canadian Goldenrod) though they all bend upwards. Each tiny daisy-like flower, 10-15mm diameter, is carried on a short stalk. The ray petals of the outer ring of florets (each is a complete one-petalled flower) are longer than the inner tubular florets and radiate outwards. The whole inflorescence often has the shape of a pyramid.

Pollinators are various types of bees, hover flies and butterflies.

Protected plant found sporadically in middle and southern Europe. Grows in semi-dry grasslands and woodland edges, (also in sub-alpine meadows - hence German name, 'Mountain Aster'). Prefers calcareous and slightly dry soil.

This is an annual plant that thrives in fields of wheat, barley and other cereal crops and is therefore considered a weed. However, the use of herbicides and over-fertilization of fields has resulted in its increasing rarity over recent decades and it is now so rare in parts of Europe that it is considered endangered.

The base of the flower is bulbous, protected by overlapping hairy bracts that enclose the base of the tubular flowers where the seeds develop. Each seed consists of a single nut with a stiff brush of short hairs at one end. These either germinate in the same season and overwinter as young plants, flowering early in the following year, or they remain dormant in the soil over winter and germinate in the following spring. In all cases, the plant dies after seeding is over.

The strong blue colour of the flower reflects ultraviolet light and is clearly visible to pollinating insects from far. The filaments of the stamens are sensitive to touch and actively bend in such a way as to aid the pollination process when insects land on the flower.

Chicory has a tough, almost woody, branching stem, a long tap root and carries flowers along its length, each one blooming for one day only.

The leaves are sparse along the stems, lower ones larger near the base.

Unlike dandelion, the seeds do not have a feathery pappus but toothed scales that may catch on the fur of passing animals.

Chicory is a pioneer plant, one of the first to become established on disturbed ground, and, with its deep roots, it can withstand dry conditions.

The plant contains bitter substances that have made it popular in traditional medicine and for culinary use.

This flower is a magnet for bees and many species of butterfly and a vital food plant for certain species of caterpillar.

The deep tap root enables it to overwinter and to survive dry periods. It is often found in dry grasslands, preferring a lime-rich soil.

The fruits consist of small seeds with a simple hairy parachute (pappus). When the seeds have blown away, a silvery flower shape is left, formed from the scaly base that has opened out.

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This plant is distinguishable by its bushy growth and small, grey-green leaves; simple leaves (bracts) along flower stems, deeply lobed leaves arranged alternately along main stems at nodes.

It is quick to colonise new habitats, favouring dry grasslands and stony ground, easily reached as the thistledown (parachutes of small hairs) carries the small, light seeds everywhere on the wind.

It can withstand periods of drought with the help of a long tap root that also stores food and enables the plant to overwinter underground.

This is a biennial plant, producing a rosette of grey-greenleaves in the first year and flowering stems in the second (and occasionally third and fourth years). The whole plant is much branched and extremely spiny, both leaves and stem, which makes it unpalatable with most grazing animals. It therefore survives well on heavily grazed land. The leaf lobes are spear-shaped, hence the names spear thistle and Lanzett-Kratzdistel.

The pink-purple flower heads composed entirely of tubular florets are very attractive to bees and butterflies, constituting an important source of nectar for its pollinators.

Seeds are tiny, each with a downy pappus of long feathered hairs that assist in wind dispersal. They are also dispersed by birds that feed on them such as finches.

Biennial plant, growing from seed, usually developing a leaf rosette in first year and flowering in second. The flowering stem is multi-branched and may reach a height of over 1m.

Leaves are deeply divided and spiny, stems are also spiny.

Flower heads are large, showy and globose, characteristically with drooping aspect. Each consists of 100's of individual florets that produce nectar at the base. This attracts bumble bees butterflies and other long-tongued insects. The globe-shaped base is covered with large, reddish-purple spiky bracts that discourage animals from eating them. Depending on suitability of the environment, each plant may produce 1-20 heads (poor site) or 20-50 heads (good site). Each plant can therefore produce many thousands of tiny seeds that are widely distributed with the help of hairy bristles acting as parachutes. They can remain viable in the soil for over 10 years, waiting until conditions become suitable for germination, a useful survival tactic in unfavourable environments.

Biennial, living two years only, flowering in the second year. The lower leaves are large, up to 50cm in length, oval heart-shaped, becoming smaller towards the tip of the branches. The leaf stem, particularly of the lower leaves, is long, about a third the length of the leaf. The undersides of the leaves may be smooth or whitish with a felt covering of hairs.

The long woody tap root is fleshy inside and used as a vegetable in Japan where it is known as 'gobi'.

The main identifying feature of the thistle-like flower is the large basal globe of the flower head which is larger than the visible florets and covered with distinctly hooked, scaly bracts. These get caught on the fur of passing animals, detaching easily from the plant when the downy fruits are ripe and so aiding seed dispersal.

Apart from the use of roots and young leaves as a vegetable in parts of Asia, oils from the root are also used in the production of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals on account of their anti-oxidant properties.

This is a herbaceous perennial plant that grows tall and bushy with many branches and multiple terminal flower clusters.

The pale pink flowers seem at first glance to be a cluster of smaller fluffy flowers but on closer inspection each tiny flower is itself a cluster of tubular florets, each with a long stigma projecting beyond the flower tube and giving the fluffy appearance. The flowers are in effect loose clusters of compact clusters, the compact clusters showing the affinity to the rest of the Asteraceae family that is otherwise not immediately apparent.

Also typical for this family, the seeds are small achenes bearing a pappus of hairs that enable wind distribution.