As its name suggests, Water dock likes damp places, such as the egdes of canals, ponds and rivers. It is a tall plant with large, greenish flower spikes.

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.

Found in ponds and marshes, the fragile look of the common water-measurer belies its fierce nature. A predator of small insects, it uses the vibrations of the water's surface to locate its…

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 river lamprey is a primitive, jawless fish, with a round, sucker-mouth which it uses to attach to other fish to feed from them. Adults live in the sea and return to freshwater to spawn.

Living up to its name, the shoveler has a large and distinctive shovel-like bill which it uses to feed at the surface of the water. It breeds in small numbers in the UK, but is widespread in…

Tansy is an aromatic plant of rough grassland, riverbanks and verges that has button-like, yellow flower heads. It is the main foodplant of the rare Tansy Beetle, now found at only two places in…