Acknowledgments

This website owes an great debt to the superb book "The Botanist in Skye" by CW Murray and HJB Birks, published in 1980 and out of print for many long years when I began this site, but republished in 2005 in an expanded edition.  For buying details go here.  If I came upon a book like that for any other part of the world I'd be tempted to go there just for the pleasure of using the book. 

I have also made heavy use of "Flora of the British Isles" by Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, and many other published books.

Many thanks to all who have contributed photos.  Any further contributions will be gratefully received.

Contact details

Website by Carl Farmer. Email

Aims of site

• To help people to identify wild plants found growing on the Isle of Skye, in north-west Scotland

• To hopefully be of occasional use to anyone trying to identify a plant found elsewhere

• To give a sense of purpose to my enthusiasm for plant photography

• To show what a wonderful heritage of plant life we have on Skye

• To help anyone who finds a plant they think unusual on Skye to know if it's worth reporting

• To act as a pilot for more ambitious projects which could incorporate this one, such as a site for the plant life of the whole UK, or for the entire wildlife of Skye.

• To encourage others to do similar projects for the plant and animal wildlife of their own areas

Structure of site

• Species list, a clickable list of all flowering plants and ferns known to occur on Skye.

• Page for each plant species (eventually)

The species pages

When complete, each species page will have

• One or more pictures of the plant

• Frequency and habitat on Skye

• Size of some part of the plant, so as to give an idea of the scale of the photo.

• Rough guide to the plant's identification on Skye

• Extra features to help identification

The pictures

The great thing about plant photography is that no matter how many pics of a species you have, you can always try for a better one.  So even on a familiar walk with no new species there will be photographic challenges.  There are different parts of the plant to get into close-up, different growth forms of plants of the same species, and of course endless seasonal variation.  Therefore as time goes by more pictures are likely to be added to each page, or subsidiary pages with extra pictures created for some species.

While I am very conscious of download times, I have avoided making the pictures too small in either physical size or compression ratio.  Pictures I put on websites a few years ago now look tiny because of the greater screen resolutions in use today, so this time I'm making sure they have a bit of bulk.  As far as file size is concerned, unfortunately the first thing to go when you increase jpg compression is the isolated dots of colour that typically represent a flower's stamens and things of that kind.  So the pics are not very compressed and any page with four or five pics on will be somewhat slow to load.  I could get round this by having thumbnails on the main page, but I'm afraid that is far too much work, as I only have odd moments to devote to this site.  Basically you will get the top picture and all the text up pretty quick - regard the other pictures as a bonus rather than an annoyance, please.

The pictures don't have to be taken by me.  There are already many by friends on the site, and if anyone out there has a pic of any species that they'd like to contribute, please send it in.  I hope this site will be seen as a joint project by all who are interested in Skye botany.  Anyone who sends in a pic can have a link to their website next to their credit beneath the pic.  Also there is a possibility that someone who sees the picture will want to use it commercially and pay you for it.

The pictures do not have to be taken on Skye!  The reasons are as follows:

• A pic of a plant not taken on Skye is better than no pic at all

• It makes no difference to identification whether the pic is from Skye or not.

• Some plants on Skye are only found on inaccessible rock ledges where I might be prepared to risk life and limb but not my camera.

• I hope to expand this site one day into a database of UK plant pics which will bring up all the plants for any selected area.  Clearly it is out of the question to have a separate pic of each plant for each area, so that if you chose "Slender St John's Wort" and "Skye" you'd get a pic of that plant growing on Skye, while if you chose "Mull" you'd get a pic of that plant growing on Mull.  Not only is the amount of work prohibitive, but it would mean one of the two islands was deprived of having the "best" picture of the plant.

Pictures are captioned with

• Name of photographer

• Website or email of photographer if they so wish

• Date and place of pic where known

• Description of part shown if not obvious, e.g "underside of stipules on non-flowering shoot"

• Sometimes the dimensions of part of the plant in the picture, e.g "left-hand leaf 3.5 cm long".

Frequency and habitat on Skye

Based on personal observation plus info in books

Size of some part of the plant

Not normally based on the actual plant in the pic.  I'm trying to get into the habit of taking measurements with every photo, but at present what you get typically is a photo of an actual plant, and then an average "book" measurement of the flower diameter, the plant's height, or some other feature which will give you an idea of the scale.  Some of the more recent photos also have the measurement of the actual plant in the photo, in purple underneath the picture.

Rough guide to the plant's identification on Skye

In theory, this means that if you find a plant that looks like the one in the picture, and that meets all the conditions given under "Skye ID" on the page, then you have your (provisional) identification.

As an example, the page for Slender St John's Wort has:

Skye ID: Stems round, not square or with raised lines, not hairy, creeping or very thin.

This assumes that your plant does look very much like the one in the picture, which means (in this case) that your plant is a St John's Wort .  There are numerous other plants (not St John's Worts) that meet the conditions of "Stems round, not square or with raised lines, not hairy, creeping or very thin" but none of these (if in flower) are likely to be confused with the one in the picture.

Extra features to help identification

After the Skye ID I give some further features which should help to confirm the identification.  E.g, in the case of Slender St John's Wort they are:

Other features: Leaves almost clasping stem and with edges slightly downturned.  Petals have reddish markings and black gland-dots.

It goes without saying that identifications made from this site cannot be relied on without corroboration, and should only be made for purposes of personal enjoyment.  Anyone intending to base any decision on plant identification, for instance someone looking to use plants for edible or medicinal purposes or as indicators of land value or any other purpose whatever, should not use this site for identification.  There are certain to be mistakes on this site.  If you find any, please let me know.

Reporting sightings

Any interesting plant records should be reported to the BSBI recorders for vice-county 104, Dr Stephen Bungard.  The email address for records is

Links

Skye Ferns - Checklist and distribution maps for ferns of Skye
Isle of Skye Data Atlas - Info on wildlife and other aspects of Skye
Skye Birds - A resource for historic and current bird info on Skye
Nature Notes from Skye - A personal diary
Portree self-catering, Isle of Skye - Close to village centre with great views over the bay where Sea Eagles fly
Donegal hedgerow - Incredible variety of species in a small area, all photographed and documented.  Now on its third year and covering a wider area.
Wild Flowers of Ryedale, Yorkshire - Many plant pictures, interactive distribution map, reports of field trips and much more
Wild Flowers in the Plymouth Area - Individual species pictures from Devon and Cornwall
Irish Wildflowers - A photographic reference and identification guide for wildflowers growing in Ireland
Wild plants of the British Isles - A photographic record of a field botanist's annual hunt for British Wild Plants.  Lots of rare species.  Includes pictures from Skye!
Flora of Zimbabwe - Complete species list, with photos and other data constantly being added
Wild Flowers of North America - Great photos of beautiful plants
Fleurs sauvages de Oudon - Wild flower pictures from a small village in Loire-Atlantique, France
Wildflower photographs from central Europe in German, excellent photos.
Adur Valley Wildlife - Superb site, every area of the country should have one like this
Scottish Movie Postcards - Interactive CD-rom's with music tracks, video travelogue, accommodation database and introduction to Gaelic culture.
Botanical Society of the British Isles - For everyone who is interested in the flora of Britain and Ireland
Ecological Flora of the British Isles - Database of British flora by ecological characteristics.
British Trees and Shrubs - Identification guide and distribution maps.
John Muir Trust - Manages various areas on Skye according to principles of pioneering conservationist John Muir.  Volunteering opportunities.
Skye and Lochalsh Access Panel - Guide to disabled facilities in the area.
Trees in Bags - Skye grown semi-mature container trees

Back to species list