Wild Flowers for you to Enjoy

From April to August there are botanical delights awaiting you in Orkney.  The flowers of the sea shore, cliff tops and wetlands will surprise and delight you with their colour and profusion.  Orkney also has a national reputation for its coastal or maritime heath, cryptic arrays of ericacious plants (heathers), growing in tight-knit communities on the wind-blasted coastal headlands.  Best known of these plants is the Scottish primrose, which has two flowering periods.

As our season begins in April, first we see the early flowers - celandines, primroses and marsh marigolds in particular.  They line the cliff tops and roadsides with ribbons of yellow.  Into May the thrift (sea pink) appears, and also the squill, giving the seascapes glorious pink and blue hues.  The Scottish primroses take their first flowering around this time but they are harder to find, diminuitive, and scattered in just a handful of sites - they are not far from Britain's rarest flower.

In June the orchids appear, mostly heath spotted and northern marsh, but with a few rarer ones here and there.  Grass of Parnassus appears in the coastal grasslands along with angelica and Scots lovage, another rare flower.  Later in the season the Scottish primroses have another flower - perhaps a survival technique as their environment is so hostile.  Sea rocket and oysterplants, with their rare and beautiful blue flowers, adorn the sand and shingle.  Many of the coastal flowers occupy natural rock ledges on the cliffs, lingering on into late summer for we humans to enjoy.

Late summer is when the maritime heath is at its best, when the heathers berry up and turn colour.  It's like a miniature fall, but one which you really have to appreciate on your hands and knees!

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