Rare Scottish wildflowers in our garden

a brief guide

by David de Pomerai

All these plants were obtained from commercial suppliers, not from the wild (where most of them are threatened). They are mostly growing under the apple trees in the front garden, but the last one listed (6) is under the lime tree near the church entrance.

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Scottish Primrose – Primula scotica

This tiny beauty is endemic to the north coast of Scotland and Orkney – it is found nowhere else in the world. Easily missed unless in flower from June to August.

Blue Heath – Phyllodoce caerulea

This rare heather is confined to a single hill overlooking the A9 – where it is impossible to tell apart from other heathers unless it’s in flower from April to June.

Mossy Campion – Silene acaulis

Easily the commonest of these plants, though you will have to climb high to find its cushions of green leaves studded with pink flowers – usually in May or June.

Alpine Catchfly – Lychnis alpina

Confined to just two sites in these islands – one on a steep crag in the Lake District, the other on a remote hilltop in Angus. In both cases, it grows on serpentine – a metal-rich rock that is toxic to most plants. Flowers from June to July.

Diapensia – Diapensia lapponica

This an arctic plant found only on a single hilltop near Glenfinnan, and not discovered until the 1950s – hence it doesn’t have a common name in either English or Gaelic! Pretty white flowers in May to June.

Whorled Solomon’s Seal – Polygonatum verticillatum

Probably one of the rarest and most threatened plants in Scotland, though much commoner across Europe. It survives only in a few inaccessible wooded ravines on tributaries of the River Tay in Perthshire. Instead of pairs of broad leaves overhanging the flowers, this species has its flowers and narrower leaves arranged in whorls; early summer flowers in June.