Flora and fauna (Scottish Highlands)

Sea-pink [Armeria maritima] Beinn Sgritheall, 10/06/08 ~ In its normal form, and an unusual pure white variety which I don't remember finding before in the wild. High on Sgritheall's north-east ridge.

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.