Cairngorms wildflowers to be relocated in rescue bid

NATIVE wildflowers in the Cairngorms will be relocated in an attempt to save them, as climate change means they are too spread out to survive.

Rare species, including the twinflower and one-flowered wintergreen, that are currently in pinewoods in the Badenoch and Strathspey areas will have cuttings taken and then be moved closer to other plants of the same kind.

The scheme, led by conservation charity Plantlife, will focus on the survival of the species, which are at risk of extinction because of habitat loss and failed attempts to interbreed.

Plantlife’s Gwenda Diack, who is directing the project, said she hopes that it will fill gaps in the population of the plants, which have become isolated from one another in a poor and fragmented habitat.

“We are looking to relocate them into pine woods which have as good a habitat as the ones they were in,” she said. “Twinflower clones need to cross- pollinate to produce viable strong seed. If there are no other twinflower clones nearby, they mainly spread by putting out runners, a bit like strawberry runners, and the seed they produce is only

‘We are looking to relocate them into pine woods which have as good a habitat as the ones they were in’

self-pollinated and so not nearly as strong and fit.”

She added that hot, dry weather has added to the environmental pressures on the plants in question.

The project will also seek to support alpine vegetation, including species such as cloudberry, which shelter in snow beds and struggle as climate change affects the wildlife of the UK.

There’s a pretty flower that grows in the Cairngorms called the twinflower. Its little pink trumpets come in pairs. You may not have seen it there because it is fairly rare. And now Plantlife Scotland has hatched a plan to dig it up. This may not sound like good news for the flower, but the idea is to replant specimens in places with better conditions for it to thrive. Recently it has grown in the wrong place. That used to be the definition of a weed, but perhaps the gentleman in Stirling (the HQ of Plantlife Scotland) really does know best. Even stranger, a Tory MSP, Bill Bowman, has been appointed the flower’s “species champion”. No doubt he will often mention it at Holyrood. It would be a pity to politicise the future of the twinflower, but the soil of Scotland should support both Conservatives and twinflowers.