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, Feverfew, 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 travelling 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........ 

We’ve travelled through a number of national parks - Northwest Sutherland, Assynt-Coigach, Beinn Eighe, Ben Nevis-Glen Coe, and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. It is all stunning and puzzling and fascinating, intriguing and simply beautiful.  Here are just a few photos of the many ......  

Dainty water lily

Garden Lady’s Mantle 

Heath Spotted-orchid

Roadside beauty! This is understated compared to other places

Elfin or Breckland Thyme (Thymus serpyllum)

I think this is an Alpine Bartsia but could be a Lousewort - the book is unclear

Wild Angelica 

Huge heads of Red Clover

Mayweed growing out between the rocks of a tiny fishing harbour

Tufted Vetch 

Lady Bedstraw

A hoverfly like me enjoying the brilliant yellow

Eyebright. These are so tiny and sweet - about 4-5mm.

Very delicate White Dead-nettle. Related to the Stinging Nettle without the stinging hairs 

Meadowsweet with its sweet smelling frothy heads all along the road side

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Banks of heather - Bell Heather and Cross-leafed Heather

Perhaps a Spear Thistle 

Creeping Thistle which they say it is fragrant but I didn’t get close enough to smell it.

There is a place for everyone!

Every village has stunning roses. Like us, roses travelled from China where they were first cultivated 5,000 years ago.

These two look wedded

This pretty thing is a Himalayan Balsam - a long way from home