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u3a Botany Group - 16 July, 2024 - Midland Hill, Orphir
by Caroline Beaton - 20:24 on 21 July 2024
The Botany Group's trip to Midland Hill, Orphir, was mercifully not attended with the usual sheets of rain. And the wind was bearable. Ten of us attended and most people had not visited the hill before. There was a very rich mix of plants in what was mostly heathland with some grassland. In addition to the flora (and the baby frog, common blue butterfly and magpie moth) the hill offers stupendous views to Stromness and Hoy and across the whole of Scapa Flow. Scotland was visible in the distance too. A blissful place to be on a sunny day...(We understand!)
The plants we noted included:
- Alpine meadow-rue
- Angelica
- Bell heather
- Blaeberry
- Bog asphodel
- Brighteye (micrantha and arctica)
- Butterwort
- Carnation Sedge
- Cat's-ear
- Commom cottongrass
- Common mouse-ear
- Creeping bent
- Cross-leaved heather
- Crowberry
- Field horsetail
- Grass of Parnassus
- Green-ribbed sedge
- Hard fern
- Heath bedstraw (or common?)
- Heath milkwort
- Heath rush (beautiful black and white flowers)
- Heath speedwell
- Heath spotted orchid
- Heath woodrush
- Lousewort (common and marsh)
- Marsh arrowgrass
- Marsh marigold
- Marsh horsetail
- Marsh ragwort
- Marsh thistle
- Meadow buttercup
- Meadowsweet
- Meadow vetchling
- Mouse-ear hawkweed
- Northern marsh orchid
- Primrose (still in flower)
- Ragged Robin
- Red clover
- Reindeer moss
- Rosebay willowherb
- Sea plantain
- Self-heal
- Slender St. John's wort
- Sneezewort
- Sorrel
- Tormentil
- Tufted hair-grass
- Twayblades
- Violet (leaves only)
- Viviparous fescue
- Wavy hair-grass
- White clover
- Woodrush
- Yellow rattle
- Yorkshire fog
Angelica
Bell Heather
Grass of Parnassus
Wild thyme
Two common blues
Common blue
Dioecious sedge
Wild thyme and tormentil
Marsh arrowgrass
Eyebright Euphrasia micrantha
Eyebright Euphrasia arctica
Eyebright tall Euphrasia micrantha
View of Hoy from Midland Hill, Orphir
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