Up near Geal Charn

 I benefit from having botanical spies around the area... Geoff who runs Balsporran Cottages B&B just by the A9, south of Dalwhinnie, got in touch to say one of his guests had spotted Lesser Twayblade on one of the tracks below Geal Charn.  It was a nice day, so we packed a picnic and set off to see what we could find.  There is a public car park just off the A9 (which is worth a visit on its own account as it is the site of lots of orchids, including an hybrid one.) Here is a photo from 2 years ago as the orchids were not out when I went last week.

To get to the walking tracks, you have to walk through the grounds of Balsporran Cottage and across the railway.  On the right of the track are some tumbledown cottages which have a selection of lichens, most of which I couldn't name but there were two kinds of Umbilicaria, which like upland areas.

Umbilicaria polyphylla in the centre and the yellow patches of map lichen (Rhizocarpon geographicum)

Umbilicaria cylindrica  with the frilly edges

Walking along the track through mainly Heather and Cowberry, I found just one patch of Lesser Twayblade (Neottia cordata) with 5 flowering spikes.

Lesser Twayblade

These are orchids but not at all like their flashy relatives.  Dull in colour and only about 10cm high, they grow nestled in the heather. My hand in the photo gives you a better idea of the scale.

A close up photo of the flower shows why it is called twayblade:

Another nice find was some Stags-horn Clubmoss (Lycopodium clavatum) with its two fingered fruiting bodies. To read more about Clubmosses see this post.

Woodruff and Willie (Sweet and Sticky)

 I have been doing some weeding in my flower border as two plants are spreading and taking over.  They are both in the bedstraw family, so their scientific names start with Galium. They also have the same arrangement of leaves, in a whorl (circle) around the stem.

Woodruff on the left with flowers, Goosegrass on the right with no flowers.

Because they look quite similar, you have to be careful when weeding.  The one on the right is Goosegrass (Sticky Willie or Cleavers) (Galium aparine) and is a "weed" as it planted itself.  It is an annual and dies in the winter but it produces plenty of round seeds with tiny hooks on.  If you have a dog, you will know that they stick in the fur and have to be teased out. I went back in the garden to find a seed to photograph but as I write (mid June) the plants have not flowered yet, so no seeds.  This photo from a previous year shows the tiny white, 5 petalled flowers which emerge from the axils (where the leave meets the stem).

Flowering Goosegrass showing the hooks on the leaves and stem

Closeup of hooks on stem

The one on the left is Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) which is already flowering.  It is perennial and comes up year after year. I planted this deliberately but it is taking over! It forms large patches by sending out rhizomes - white roots. I have read that it also has bristly seeds but I have never noticed that.  So that is two seeds to look out for and photograph.

Sweet Woodruff

Goosegrass

UPDATE: It is now mid July and there are seeds on the plants so I am posting a picture.  Much to my surprise, both of the seeds have plenty of hooks. The difference in size is just a feature of maturity.

Woodruff (on left) and Goosegrass (on right)

A sticky business and an unexpected find

Twice a year I survey a few plots for the NPMS (National Plant Monitoring Scheme). All my plots are in the 1 km x 1 km square which has the Grid Reference NN7199 - which is handy as it is the square I live in.  I was up behind Craggan yesterday, looking at one of the plots which is on a boggy bit of moor.  The most obvious plant is bog cotton (Eriophorum vaginatum) which has fluffy white seedheads that wave around in the wind. This one is Hare's-tail Cottongrass.

Bog cotton or cottongrass

The wet areas have a carpet of sphagnum moss.  Look carefully at the picture below and you can see the moss in the centre. look even more carefully and you can see some red patches. Sphagnum can be red, but in this case the red patches are a different tiny plant.

Sphagnum moss and...?

Getting onto your knees and peering is the only way to see what it is. They are tiny, as the photo with my finger shows.

This is the leaf of a sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) which grows in wet nutrient-poor places and captures extra food by digesting flies which get caught on the sticky droplets. I didn't notice when I took the photo but there is a fly caught on this one. The green  oval coming from the centre of the leaves is the flower bud.

They are very beautiful in their tiny way, so I took lots of photos (using a clip on macro lens on my phone).

On the way home I went past a mossy rock face at the back of Craggan.

  I wasn't intending to look for lichens but I couldn't resist investigating.  I was glad I did as I found  a lichen I had never seen before.  It was minty green with black spots.

It turned out to be Peltigera brittanica which is found in Scotland  but not elsewhere in the UK. The edges are turned up and remind me of a poppadom. Here is a close up which gives a better idea of the colour. 

It grows browner when dry, and a much brighter green when wet and grows on mossy acidic rocks in moist woodland, which is exactly where I found it.