Iridaceae - Iris and Crocus family

VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall, Woodward) - see this link for details.

More on recording in Leicestershire and Rutland is on the webpage of our local VC55 branch of the BSBI, here.

Facebook Group: Wildflowers of Britain & Ireland

British Wild Flowers - an enthusiast's photo site. Comprehensive photo library but only one species at a time.

BSBI Plant Identification - lots of resources for helping you to identify that plant!

We recommend that you look at the 'Get Started' advice on the BSBI's website, which includes Andrew Branson's useful reviews of some popular field guides. 

The botanist’s bible is Clive Stace’s ‘New Flora of the British Isles' - 4th edition (C&M Floristics, 2019).  Not for the faint-hearted, but it does include keys for the identification of all native, naturalised and crop plants in the British Isles, and is the standard reference book that NatureSpot uses for verifying records.  

To help identify plants that are not in flower, many botanists use John Poland and Eric Clement's 'The Vegetative Key to the British Flora' - 2nd edition (BSBI, 2020). 

The BSBI also publish a set of Handbooks on difficult plant groups, with detailed keys, descriptions and line drawings (for example, sedges, umbellifers, willows and poplars, grasses, pondweeds). These are excellent publications.  There is also their Plant Crib guidance, with many useful tips for more difficult species. 

Specific ID resources may be found under each section, family or species in the galleries. 

If you know of other websites or books that you would recommend, do let us know: info@naturespot.co.uk