Twinflower & Wintergreen

Twinflower & Wintergreen sounds like the name of a small, rather dodgy detective agency but they are the names of two quite rare plants which we found today in Balblair Woods. We don't usually visit the woods this often but their protection seemed a good idea in view of today's summery weather - a midday temperature of 10C, a cold northerly wind, and frequent showers.

The above picture of the woods doesn't look much different to most of the area near the road but it is, for it is home to a small colony of....

....the little pink twinflower, so-called for the unusual manner in which....

....the stalk bifurcates just below the two, bell-shaped flowers. It's an Arctic-Alpine plant, a relic of the ice age, which used to be much more widespread in Britain but is now only found in about fifty sites, exclusively in Scotland and many in the Cairngorms.

The species has suffered grievously from the clearance of the native Caledonian woodland, to the extent that these sites are now isolated, with consequences for the plant's genetic diversity. Changes in woodland management, and grazing by sheep and deer, now threaten it further. Despite a search, we only found one site in Balblair Woods, no more than 10mx10m in extent.

This is one-flowered wintergreen, a difficult little plant to photograph on a dull day as its flowers are on short stalks and face the ground. It's exclusive to the northeast of Scotland and is the county flower of Moray. We found it to be much more widespread in Balblair Woods than twinflower but in smaller colonies. It is less endangered, having healthy populations in some parts of the country.

In the middle of the area of the woods populated by twinflower and wintergreen we found a lone colony of half a dozen heath spotted orchids. It may be because they are so isolated that their shapes are exactly as this species is described - quite short, and rather conical - and this may be because they haven't had the opportunity to hybridise with common spotted orchids.

Something we noticed as we tramped around searching for small flowers was the amount of cuckoo spit attached to the heather.

While we were in the woods we couldn't resist a quick visit to the osprey nest. One of the parents was there but we didn't see any sign of the chicks.