July Highlands, meadow and roadside - glorious flowers

I’m pretty sure I said there were flowers - right!? They are glorious - buttercups, thistles of many varieties, red clover like huge lush strawberries, daisies and sea-lavender, fragrant honeysuckle, blowsy white and deep pink wild roses, meadowsweet, cheerful mayweed, fever few, tufted vetch, white water lilies (a big surprise) - and so many more that I can’t identify, yet! Oh the bonny roads of Scotland .....

Then we were driving through more rugged and wild country. I love it! We were in the northern highlands venturing down the west coast. Common knapweed (thistle family), Garden Lady’s Mantle (love these names), spearwort and water lobelia - both delicate water plants which show their flowers above water, orchids, heather/heath, gorse, green and golden bracken. And more........ oh no😩

We’ve travelled through a number of national parks- Northwest Sutherland, Assynt-Coigach, Beinn Eighe, Ben Nevis-Glen Coe, and now Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. It is all stunning and puzzling and fascinating, intriguing and simply beautiful.  Here are just s few ...... and there are a few more in my Album on Flickr. 

Garden Lady’s mantle 

Heath spotted orchid 

Common spotted orchid 

Roadside beauty! This is understated compared to other places.

Not sure what these are but they are very sweet

The ‘bartsia’ flower 

I think this is an alpine bartsia (could be a lousewort - the book is unclear)

Wild Angelica 

Tufted vetch 

Red clover- huge heads

Mayweed growing out between the rocks of a tiny fishing harbour.p

Lady bedstraw



These are do tiny and sweet. Eye bright confusa

See what I mean

Rayed form of the common knapweed. Such an ordinary name for such a stunner.

White dead nettle. Related to the stinging nettle without the stinging hairs the flower is very delicate 

Meadow sweet and it is sweet smelling in frothy heads all along the road side.

We’ve seen many such banks of heather. This is bell heather and lighten one is cross-leafed heath

Rayed form of the common knapweed. Such an ordinary name for such a stunner.

I think this is a spear thistle 

Creeping thistle. The only species which has a paling flower. They say it is fragrant but I didn’t get close enough to smell it.

Saw lots of these little creatures grazing after a night of drizzle

Look what I found under this leaf

Why is this here? Every village we’ve been through has stunning roses of all colours. Roses seem to be a common flower right across from China.

This pretty thing is a Himalayan balsam