(Rein in the Scottish jokes, will ya? -Ed.) That’s the thistle you see in upland pasture and on the banks of streams (or burns, in Scots).Īnd there’s also the Partick, Buckie and the Inverness Caley Thistle for those so inclined. There are a lot of different types, including spear thistle, the pernicious creeping thistle, the (damp loving) marsh thistle and the melancholy thistle. Just a moment – can you believe your luck? – we also have a whole page dedicated to where to see heather. Today, many of the cultivars to be found in garden centres both in Scotland and beyond were developed from chance finds in the wild or from ‘sports’ noticed on other cultivars already growing in gardens. The origins of white heather – as opposed to the usual mauve hues – were explained in folk-myth as the places where the tears of Malvina, daughter of the Celtic bard Ossian, fell after she had learned of the death of her lover in battle. Heather naturally gives rise to ‘sports’ or mutants. Herbalists also prescribed it – and still do – for its anti-rheumatic properties and its specific use in the treatment of urinary infections. The old herbalists knew that ‘they who lie down at night faint and weary’ on a heather bed, ‘rise in the morning active and lively’ – because of its restorative properties.
Heather was used as bedding and thus links its domestic use and its herbal or medicinal role. Wait, this is supposed to be about Scottish flowers.Īnd, wait again, the Ullapool Hill walk has made it on to the top ten walks in Scotland page.Īnyway, our common purple heather is just that – widespread in all kinds of situations – it’s a pretty tough customer, coping with the poor acid Highland soils. It’s the furthest north I’ve ever seen a common lizard in Scotland. It’s on top of a marker post on the Ullapool Hill walk. Pictured here is bell heather, though I’ve been peering at the original for a while just to make sure it wasn’t cross-leaved heath!Īnyway, yes, I know, I know: there’s a wee lizard there as well. They are all basically shades of purple and mauve. Cross-leaved heath has all its flowers at the top of the stem. cinerea) and cross-leaved heath (E. tetralix). There are two main types of heather – Calluna or common heather (sometimes referred to as ‘ling’) and Erica (sometimes called ‘bell heather’).Īnd there are two species of Erica, bell heather (E. That Purple Scottish Flower – It’s Heather! I can’t really say if they are common in the middle of runways of abandoned wartime airfields, but that’s where I photographed the ones in the picture here.įinally, Scots bluebells are later in the season than the spring-flowering ‘ordinary’ (though lovely’ bluebells. Harebells are common on heathland and verges. ‘Scots bluebells’ are harebells (in English) – pictured here – and are really Campanula rotundifolia. You know the difference between a bluebell and a Scots bluebell, simply one of our best known flowers?īluebells ( Hyacinthoides non-scripta) usually grow in woodland in great swathes.
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