When you spend a day talking to Josh Styles of the North West Rare Plant Initiative, a new world opens up to you - plants are fascinating.

And my interest in plants has increased this year, as I found many growing proudly from walls around our village. This was a result of furloughed workers not being around to "tidy them up" - there is really no need!

A new book gives you a real insight into some really interesting plants right on our doorstep. Britain's Ferns - A Field Guide to the clubmosses, quillworts, horsetails and ferns of Great Britain and Ireland by James Merryweather, might just create a whole new army of botanists in the near future.

What I like about the author is his introduction - "This volume is not intended to be a comprehensive manual of pteridology (the study of the plants described in this book) - but it has lots of added extras to assist, inform and hopefully entertain today's user."

As with all our natural world, there are lots of complications and identifying plants that come in many varieties is going to be tough. So this is a great guide for people who want to know about some of the more common plants they see on walks.

The book goes through various types of plant and their characteristics and then looks at individual ferns and their cousins. There are some great names here - adder's tongues, bladder ferns, maidenhair fern and interrupted clubmoss. The latter can be found in lots of Scotland and just one site in Cumbria. 

All illustrated by superb pictures - it's a great place to start identifying ferns but it's quite a complicated species to work on. Still, if you like a challenge.