A fine Sunday with limited ferries allowed me to visit two tetrads to the east of the road from Sligachan to Portree with no previous records. I was fearful of a really dull day botanically and the first hour in the more southerly tetrad was confirming my fears. However, as I followed a burn southwards into some hills things started to look up. I started to see Alchemilla alpina (Alpine Lady’s-mantle) and then in the gully of this burn and along the hill to two further burn gullies I found Diphasiatrum alpinum (Alpine Clubmoss)
Diphasiastrum alpinum
Saussurea alpina (Alpine Saw-wort), the first record for this 10km square, Rubus saxatilis (Stone Bramble)
Rubus saxatilis
Thalictrum alpinum (Alpine Meadow-rue), Saxifraga aizoides (Yellow Saxifrage), also a new 10km square record
Saxifraga aizoides
and Saxifraga stellaris (Starry Saxifrage)
Saxifraga stellaris
Back down in the bog I found Carex pauciflora (Few-flowered Sedge), Drosera intermedia (Oblong-leaved Sundew – rarer locally than records suggest IMHO and so seeds checked microscopically), Rhyncospora alba (White Beak-sedge), Utricularia minor (Lesser Bladderwort) in flower. All in all I had such a good time in this tetrad that all I had time for in the second was a quick walk through one corner. This one does not have the hills and generally does not look rich, though a rocky outcrop by a burn did have Rubus saxatilis.
Tags: Plants
