Flora of Scotland
The total number of vascular species is low by world standards but lichens and bryophytes are abundant and the latter form a population of global importance.
Scotland enjoys a diversity of temperate ecologies, incorporating both deciduous and coniferous woodlands, and moorland, montane, estuarine, freshwater, oceanic, and tundra landscapes.
[4] Approximately 18.5% of Scotland is wooded, 14.5% of which is non-native forestry plantation, but prior to human clearing there would have been much larger areas of boreal Caledonian and broad-leaved forest.
[citation needed] Caithness and Sutherland have some of the largest and most intact areas of blanket bog in the world, supporting a distinctive wildlife community.
[10] Much of the Scottish coastline consists of machair, a fertile dune pasture land formed as sea levels subsided after the last ice age.
It was found growing on Skye in the 18th century, although there was subsequent confusion as to both the discoverer and the correct scientific name – now agreed to be Eriocaulon aquaticum.
The European range of this plant is confined to Scotland and western Ireland and it is one of only a small number of species which is common in North America, but very restricted in Europe.
[25] Common cottongrass is a familiar site on marshy land,[26] but saltmarsh sedge (Carex salina) was only discovered for the first time in 2004 at the head of Loch Duich.
[30][31] Young's helleborine (Epipactis youngiana) is a rare endemic orchid principally found on bings created by the coal-mining industry in the Central Lowlands and classified as endangered.
These include Diapensia lapponica, found only on the slopes of Sgurr an Utha, Argyll[35] and Mountain Bearberry, recorded at only a few mainland locations, and on Skye and Orkney.
[39][40][41][42] A number of non-native, invasive species have been identified as a threat to native biodiversity; Giant Hogweed, Japanese knotweed, Himalayan balsam and Rhododendron ponticum are generally regarded as the 'big 4'.
[43][needs update]Over-grazing caused by the large numbers of Red Deer and sheep has also resulted in the impoverishment of moorland and upland habitats and a loss of native woodland.
[46] The Meikleour beech hedges located in Perth and Kinross were planted in the autumn of 1745 by Jean Mercer and her husband, Robert Murray Nairne.
[49][50] The trees developed in a highly complex fashion involving the rock whitebeam (S. rupicola), which is found on nearby Holy Isle but not Arran, interbreeding with the rowan (S. aucuparia) to produce the new species.
[51] Shakespeare makes reference to Birnam Wood being used as camouflage for Malcolm Canmore's army before the battle at Dunsinane with MacBeth.
The orange berries can be processed into jams, liquors and ointments and the hardy species grows well even on exposed west coasts.
[58][59] At 64.3 metres (211 ft), a grand fir planted beside Loch Fyne, Argyll in the 1870s was named as the UK's tallest tree in 2011.
Dùghall Mòr (Scottish Gaelic for "Big Douglas"), another Douglas fir located in Reelig Glen near Inverness, reaches just over 62 metres (203 ft) in height and was considered to be the tallest tree in Britain until a survey undertaken by Sparsholt College in 2009 (which named the Stronardron fir as the highest).
The plants were first identified as separate species by John Bolton in 1785 and came under severe threat from Victorian fern collectors in the mid 19th century.
[68] Cystopteris dickieana, first discovered in a sea cave in Kincardineshire, is a rare fern in a UK context whose distribution is confined to Scotland, although recent research suggests that it may be a variant of C. fragilis rather than a species in its own right.
[69][70] Scotland provides ideal growing conditions for many bryophyte species, due to the damp climate, absence of lengthy droughts and winters without protracted hard frosts.
Scotland's bryophyte flora is globally important and this small country may host as many as 5% of the world's species (in 0.05% of the Earth's land area, similar in size to South Carolina or Assam).
The mountains of the North-west Highlands host a unique bryophyte community called the "Northern Hepatic Mat", which is dominated by a variety of rare liverworts, such as Pleurozia purpurea and Anastrophyllum alpinum.
[72][73] Scotland has played an important part in the development of the understanding of bryology, with pioneers such as Archibald Menzies and Sir William Hooker commencing explorations at the end of the eighteenth century.
[74] glittering wood-moss, woolly hair-moss (Racomitrium lanuginosum) and bristly haircap (Polytrichum piliferum) are amongst many other abundant natives.
[72][78] In the Cairngorms there are small stands of snow brook-moss and alpine thyme-moss, and an abundance of icy rock-moss, the latter's UK population being found only here and at one site in England.
[73][81] Autumn Flapwort (Jamesoniella autumnali), a nationally scarce species most commonly found in the sessile oak woods of western Scotland, was discovered at a site on Ben Lomond in 2008.
[3] Most rock surfaces, except those in very exposed places, or that are kept constantly wet by sea or fresh water, become grown with lichens.
[92] The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 prohibits the uprooting of plants without a landowner's permission and the collection of any part of the most threatened species, which are listed in Schedule 8.
Some sources suggest the specific occasion was the Battle of Largs, which marked the beginning of the departure of the Viking monarch Haakon IV of Norway, who had harried the coast for some years.
