Monday 3rd, Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th June: Glencoe and area, Scotland
This meeting will give you the opportunity to visit and botanise in one of the fragments of temperate rainforest still left in the UK. Sir Ghillean Prance mentioned UK temperate rainforests in the Autumn 2023 magazine and he is giving a WFS online talk about them on Wednesday April 17th
A three-day meeting is planned on a “Come-and-Find” basis to explore some of the plants to be found in the West of Scotland. It is intended to spend the first day exploring Rannoch Moor and nearby areas, where we hope to see Rannoch-rush Scheuchzeria palustris and other peatland species including perhaps Purple Pitcherplant Sarracenia purpurea which has been naturalised there. The name Rannoch-rush reflects the fact that Rannoch Moor was the first site the species was found, and the only one where it currently occurs.
Day two will concentrate on an exploration of the coastal Atlantic rainforest and heathland either on the Ardsheal peninsula or around Loch Creran and the Glasdrum Wood Nature Reserve. Scotland’s coastal temperate rainforest is incredibly rare on a global level, rarer than a tropical rainforest. High levels of rainfall and relatively mild, year-round temperatures provide just the right conditions for some of the world’s rarest bryophytes and lichens making Scotland’s rainforest internationally important. This is a WFS meeting but the British Bryological Society (the BBS) has been invited to attend to contribute some bryophyte experience to the group.
On the third day we will aim to explore some lesser known but rich areas in the hills of lower Glencoe.
All days will require walking over some very rough and often untracked wet or rocky ground, but only on the third day do we expect to do much climbing (though not to the famous summits!).
To book, contact Janet John wfs.meetings@gmail.com or phone 01753 884490