Seasons: December

Perennial rye-grass is a tufted, vigorous grass of roadside verges, rough pastures and waste ground. It is commonly used in agriculture and for reseeding grasslands.

A classic fern of woodlands across the UK, the male-fern is also a great addition to any garden. It grows impressive stands from underground rhizomes, dying back in autumn.

• Ferns and Horsetails

With club-shaped leaflets on its fronds, wall-rue is easy to spot as it grows out of crevices in walls. Plant it in your garden rockery to provide cover for insects.

• Ferns and Horsetails

A small, tufted fern, maidenhair spleenwort can be found growing out of crevices between rocks, in walls and on mossy branches across the UK.

• Ferns and Horsetails

The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on their undersides.

• Ferns and Horsetails

The common polypody is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has ladder-like, leathery foliage with pimply undersides - these spots are the spores.

• Ferns and Horsetails

Parsley fern lives up to its name - the pale green fronds form in clusters among rocks and look just like parsley. Look out for it in upland areas, particularly in Wales and Cumbria.

• Ferns and Horsetails

The Silver Y migrates to the UK in massive numbers each year - sometimes, an estimated 220 million can reach our shores in spring! Seen throughout the year, it is very common in gardens and grasslands.

The humming-bird hawk-moth migrates to the UK from Southern Europe each year. It can be seen hovering over flowers, feeding with its long proboscis; its wings move so quickly that it 'hums'.

The comma has distinctively ragged wing edges, which help to camouflage it - at rest, it looks just like a dead leaf! It prefers woodland edges, but can be spotted feeding on fallen fruit in gardens.