Botanical Notes II

In June of last year, I published two blog entries  Botanical Notes 1 and Botanical Notes 3. You may have wondered what happened to Botanical Notes 2, and quite rightly so. :-)

Anyhow, I was proof-reading this article late into the night last summer, and suddenly became so tired that the only option was bed. :-) I finally resumed and finished the proof-reading today.

Here we go ...

What got me started on the wildflower kick this year (i.e. 2025) was seeing the following plant growing by the road going past the castle. There were large vigorous clumps, richly covered in flowers and yet, I couldn't recall ever seeing anything like it before. The Seek phone App told me unambiguously it was Tuberous Comfrey, and I will assuredly remember this from now on.

Tuberous Comfrey - Symphytum tuberosum

The Rhododendrons on the castle drives are the delight of early Summer. Although these are often considered as invasive, growing conditions around the castle are so harsh that these are not spreading away from the drive and indeed any colour whatsoever is very welcome. Most of the Rhododendrons are the basic purple colour that you find in the wild, but I can help but feel there were once a variety of colours but they have reverted to the wild, usually stronger, type. Having said that there are still a variety of darker and lighter purples.

Common Rhododendron - Rhododendron ponticum

There is a single rather weedy red Rhododendron that looks like it might not last much longer. However, every year I remove the weeds around it in the hope it may flourish. If ever the castle were to have a garden, I would plant a variety of differently coloured Rhododendrons and Azaleas, as they do well in the area. Cortachy Castle has an amazing show.

Common Rhododendron - Rhododendron ponticum

The following plant I do recognise from the leaves alone as the Blaeberry. I stored the location in my brain, with the full knowledge that it will produce edible berries in the autumn. I was interested to see if Seek could make a foliage only identification and whether it would choose the Scottish name I knew. Anyhow, it correctly identified the Common Bilberry. I knew it was related to the Myrtle of the Alps, and this can be seen in the latin name. The incredibly expensive jam made from Myrtle berries can be seen in the shops in European skiing resorts.

common bilberry/blaeberry - Vaccinium myrtillus

I was at a loss trying to identify this delicate pink flower, and was surprised that it is turned out to be a member of the Mallow family. I can identify the more robust Common Mallow. And looking close-up at the photo you can see darker pink veins which are characteristic:

Musk mallow - Malva moschata

You see this yellow flower, known as the Monkey flower, growing in the steams at Balintore. It is a marginal that loves water.

Monkey flowers - Mimulus guttatus

I have known the ham and eggs plant (or bird's foot trefoil) ever since a childhood country ramble with the children's "Hobbies Club" at Ayr Library. The colours are indeed somewhat reminiscent of the egg yokes and bacon that appear in a cooked breakfast. The older gentleman guide made a great impression on me, and I just thought how wonderful to do such identifications. This blog article is in part his legacy.

bird's foot trefoil - Lotus corniculatus

I get the next one mixed up with the wood anemone - this is also white and also has 8 petals. However, the arctic starflower or chickweed-wintergreen has much more pointy angular petals very much looking like a traditional "star" shape.

Artic Starflower - Lysimachia europaea

The wood anemone in contrast has more rounded petals.

Mist and Smoke

In the last few months, I have been telling myself to get out the car whenever a scene that makes an impression through the car windscreen, might register as a photograph.

In practice, I rarely do as my phone is doubling as a Sat Nav. Google Maps tends to lose the plot in the absence of a mobile signal and certainly does not like photographic interludes. Also leaving the warmth of my vehicle's cab, is not an appealing proposition.

The two photographs below result from those occasions when intent and action aligned. They are not good photos in any sense but they do at least capture the mood of the current changing of season.

In the first "winter photo", the mist had come down over the mountain at the back of Balintore. This is one of my favourite landscape looks, as the mountains loom, as if toweringly and Tolkienesquely high, under the blanket of cloud.

Balintore under cloud - 31st January 2026

The second more recent "spring photo" shows heather-burning taking place on the hills around Balintore. Most burning occurs in the spring when the plant material has dried out, allowing it to burn, while cold, damp conditions underfoot mean the fire is most easily controlled.I had not seen heather-burning for some time, so I felt it was a spectacle worth capturing.

To the right of the frame were other mountains covered in snow, but the I couldn't quite fit them in.  I so wanted to call the photo "The Land of Fire and Ice" which I thought was another name for Scotland. The Internet tells me disappointingly, that this phrase refers to Iceland.

heather burning: 3rd March 2026

Heather burning is definitely on the decline. Anything to do with shooting is politically contentious, even though the scientific evaluation of the impacts is far from clear.

I can recall many smoky days with amazing orange sunsets at the start of the restoration. On one most memorable evening, there was a thick glowing orange atmosphere around the castle, lit up by brilliant sunshine. There were even embedded sparkles. To this day, I do not know the physics that were involved.

Now we are in March, I can announce with glee that this is the month in which we gain the most daylight. I was surprised by the amount of change when I heard this statistic for the first time recently. Kirriemuir gets an extra 2 hours and 24 minutes of the stuff in March. I will relish every second, and am quite inspired to draw this graph.