Purple saxifrage Chno Dearg, 05/04/80
Purple saxifrage Glen Lyon, 06/05/84 ~ Flowering so early in the year, and in relatively hostile locations, this saxifrage has to work hard to attract insect pollinators. As a result, the flowers are profuse, large, colourful and seductive, with copious nectaries at the base of the twin styles. To avoid self-pollination, the ten anthers ripen first - three here are ripe, and the rest will follow before the stigma becomes receptive. As a last resort, it may reluctantly self-pollinate, but if in spite of everything there is a failure of fertilisation one year, it is no great disaster, as the plants are long-lived.
Mountain azalea [Loiseleuria procumbens]. Sgurr na Bana Mhoraire, 05/06/85 ~ This exquisite little plant, a relative of the rhododendron, is as tough a survivor as they come. A true alpine, it favours open, windswept sites above 650m - large swathes of the Lochnagar plateau are tinted pink by it in midsummer - and the thick waxy leaves assist in the absorption (the medial grooves channel dew) and retention of water over the vast range of temperatures that it can tolerate.
