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.

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.

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…

Greater burdock is familiar to us as the sticky plant that children delight in, frequently throwing the burs at each other. It actually uses these hooked seed heads to help disperse its seeds.

The once-common pochard is now under threat because its populations are declining rapidly. The UK is an important winter destination for the pochard, with 48,000 birds visiting our wetlands and…

One of the longest seaweeds native to the UK, thongweed helps create a beautiful underwater forest to rival that of any on the land!

Common box grows in woodlands and scrub in southern England, with notable populations in the Chilterns, Cotswolds and North Downs. A familiar evergreen tree, it has shiny, dark green, oval leaves…