Flora and fauna (Scottish Highlands)

The albino Armeria - Fls dark to pale pink say my books, but of virgin white they are silent. The ground cover is Woolly fringe moss [Racomitrium lanuginosum].

Mossy cyphel [Minuartia sedoides] Sgurr Mor Fhannaich, 19/06/08 ~ While not exactly a rarity, the cyphel is an uncommon plant, in Britain restricted to the Scottish mountains, generally in the west and not normally below 1500', and otherwise worldwide to the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, and western Balkans. Where it does occur though, it can grow in great profusion, as here in the Fannichs. These hills, on this day of almost unrelenting gloom, were at boot level a riot of colour, swathes of ground carpeted with cyphel, moss campion, sea-pink, and lady's mantle, all in full bloom.

Fir clubmoss [Lycopodium selago] Monadh Mor, 21/06/08 ~ The commonest of the 6 clubmosses that are found in our hills. Clubmosses are a very ancient group of plants which flourished (up to 40m high!) in the Carboniferous era, 350 million years ago, long before any flowering plant is found in the fossil record.