Key A - General Plant Form

1	Small fern with a hairy, four-leaf, clover-like frond (mainly ponds and water filled depressions)	Common Nardoo (*Marsilea drummondii) Water Clover Family* (Marsileaceae)
1	Non-ferns	2
2	Perennial woody plants or biennial plants,becoming woody or tough with age	3
2	Annual non-woody plants or if perennials with base and older stems becoming tough with age, then less than 0.2 m tall: Herbs:	5
3	Plants having a main trunk with a distinctive bark layer and branches with a more or less simple forking pattern; generally more than 3m tall	Trees (Key B)
3	Plants without a main trunk but with an intricate and often dense branching pattern; generally less than 3 m tall	4
4	Plants with a more or less erect growth habit; generally 0.5 - 3 m tall	Shrubs (Key C)
4	Plants with dense, ground-hugging, compact growth and at least the lower parts of basal branches becoming woody with age; generally 0.2 - 0.5 m tall	Sub-shrubs^d (Key C)
5	Plants with short or broad leaves with branching veins (one exception is Ribwort¹); tap roots or bulbs: Forbs^b	Dicotyledons (Key D)
5	Plants with long and narrow leaves having parallel veins (exceptions include Water Plantain and Star-fruit^c); fibrous roots (sometimes with stolons or rhizomes): non-Forbs (Grasses and Rush-like Plants)	Monocotyledons (Key E)

^aRibwort (Plantago lanceolata) is a Dicotyledon inFamily Plantaginaceae and has more or less parallel veins, while the remaining members have branching veins.
^bNote that Trees, Shrubs and Sub-shrubs are also Dicotyledons and while Grasses and Rush-like Plants are technically Herbs, they are not Forbs.
^cWater Plantain (Alisma plantago-aquatica) and Star-fruit (Damasonium minus) are Monocotyledons in family Alismataceae but have rather broad, pointed leaves with cross-veins between the parallel veins. Their fruits are distinctive; being small wheels or stars of fruitlets go directly to these pages for images and descriptions
^dSub-shrubs often bridge the gap between Shrubs and Forbs and therefore the key to the latter may need to be consulted if the plant you are examining does not appear in the former. A few species have been included in both keys but as a rule, species have been assigned to their most common form.

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