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Flowers of Scotland

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Well, here’s my take on just some of the flowers of Scotland. What brought you here? Were you looking for anything specific or just some information of Scotland’s flora? Or were you looking to get flowers delivered for any occasion? Here’s a small selection of the flowers of Scotland I’ve enjoyed – high on the mountains, down by the sea, along the lush country lanes that you can find even in Scotland. I’ve tried where possible to relate these pictures to a place, as it may help you decide which part of Scotland you want to visit. Incidentally, follow this link if you want to know what flowers were used to dye tartan.

And I may return to this flowery topic as I haven’t even begun to look through these old scary boxes of 35mm transparencies labelled ‘flowers’! (Gosh, how I wish how I’d indexed them better…..)

Bluebells in Laggan Hill woodland, west of Crieff, Perthshire

(Above) Let’s start with bluebells doing their best in an uncertain Perthshire spring. The oaks aren’t really out yet and there’s a shower on the way – that’s the trouble with spring in Strathearn, near the town of Crieff, when the weather comes down the strath, out of the west.

Harebell or Scots bluebell, Campanula rotundifolia

Harebell or Scots bluebell, Campanula rotundifolia

You know the difference between a bluebell and a ‘Scots bluebell’, one of the best known of the flowers of Scotland? Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) usually grow in woodland in great swathes. ‘Scots bluebells’ are harebells (in English) and are really Campanula rotundifolia. (Stop me if I get too technical.) They’re common on heathland and verges, though the ones shown (left) have a sandy background as they were growing by the shores of Loch Tay, near Killin, Perthshire.

Heather moor in August, above Kenmore, Perthshire

Let’s get to the really characteristic flowers of Scotland now. Above is a heather moor in August, when it’s in bloom. This is above Kenmore on Loch Tay, Perthshire again. When the wind blows across the moor there’s a great scent. It’s worth tracking down some Perthshire heather honey. There are two types of heather - Erica and Calluna (sometimes called ‘bell heather’). Heather used to be a useful plant to the Highlands of old – they made rope out of the stems. Thistlehead with fritillary butterfly

(Left) What could be more Scottish than thistles? The traditional tale of how, of all the flowers of Scotland, the thistle came to be a Scottish symbol is, frankly, a bit far-fetched. Apparently, far back in the Scotch mists of time, a raiding party of Vikings landed at night to pillage a Scottish village. They went undetected until one of the barefoot Norsemen stood on a particularly sharp thistle. The resulting Viking bad language awoke the village who armed themselves and drove off the Norsemen. Yeah, right.

King James VII founded the Most Ancient Order of the Thistle in 1687. Their motto was Nemo me immune lacessit, translated into Scots as ‘Wha daur meddle wi me? (Or, into English: no-one assails me with impunity, which, to be honest, I find positively wimpy by comparison.) The Order had a generally spiky-looking thistle as an emblem. And that’s the problem with thistles. Among the flowers of Scotland, no-one is quite sure which one is meant to be a Scottish thistle. There are a lot of different types, including spear thistle, the pernicious creeping thistle, the damp loving marsh thistle and the melancholy thistle that you see in upland pasture and on the banks of streams (or burns, in Scots).

In the illustration (above, left), matters have been made worse by the fact there is a fritillary as sitting on the thistle. So we not only have a hard to identify thistle, but a not too easy butterfly as well. Let me know exactly which fritillary, will you, please? It was photographed at Roseisle, near Burghead in Moray – my favourite beach.

Dryas octopetala, mountain avens, plant of limestone hills
Let’s go up high again to find some special flowers of Scotland, firstly with mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) (left). If you see this plant, you’re on limestone. It won’t grow on the acid peaty soils that are so common in Scotland. You can find it by the roadside on a certain spot on Skye, and by the sea at Durness in the far north – in fact, anywhere that a thin band of limestone emerges in the north-west of Scotland. But mostly it’s high in the mountains. And, it is said that the cup formed by the petals follow the sun like a kind of tracking dish – to warm up the, uhmm, middle bit to attract pollinating insects. Aren’t some plants clever? The leaves, like miniature oak leaves, are another identifying feature.

Cloudberry, in flower on Ben Chonzie, Perthshire

Here’s another characteristic plant of upland Scotland (above). This is cloudberry, in flower, recorded on Ben Chonzie, high above the Glenturret Distillery near Crieff. Later in the season, the red berries form. I reckon they just taste watery! Ben Chonzie is also famous for its mountain hares. (More on wildlife in Scotland here.) Moss campion in the Cairngorms

(Right)Scattered across the wild uplands of Scotland, moss campion’s pink starry flowers usually grow out of a soft green cushion of moss-like foliage. These were photographed amongst the granites of the Cairngorms, but it’s pretty widespread and brightens up many an otherwise dull plateau (to be honest!). It’s a plant I especially associate with a long day’s hillwalk.

Gorse,(below) sometimes called whins in Scotland, brightens up the Lowland landscapes throughout the country. In the picture below, the foreground thicket is in woodland west of Elgin in Moray, looking east towards the Bin Hill on the horizon.

Gorse in bloom in Morayshire, looking east towards the Bin Hill

Here’s my favourite Scottish plant – bog myrtle.

Bog myrtle, Enard Bay, near Ullapool, Scotland

Bog myrtle (right) is my favourite (and favorite) plant because, not only do the leaves, when crushed, give of a scent that, to me, simply, says ‘Oh good, I must be somewhere special in the Highlands’, but the scent also repels midges. Well, probably. This is the fully grown plant.

As its name suggests, it likes wet areas and so is widespread in the Highlands. It loses its leaves for winter, then little catkins appear in spring to give a reddish tinge to its native boggy habitat. Bog myrtle is also called sweet gale and is getting a lot of attention at the moment from natural beauty product producers.

The Viking-themed tour of the north of Scotland is the one to follow if you are interested in the flowers of Scotland. There are good botanical sites at several parts of the north coast - with Scots primrose just one speciality. The limestone outcrops in the Assynt area (Inchnadamph), north of Ullapool, are also good. And where there are fine flowers, there is usually fine scenery too. Check out the beautiful scenery pictures page.

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SBI!