Friday flowers - machair

     "In summer, the grass on the cliff-tops is thick with flowers: bog asphodel and bog pimpernel; branched orchids, the stars of tormentil and milkwort. 'Under such skies can be expected no great exuberance of vegetation,' Dr. Johnson wrote, but this miniature spangle of Hebridean flora, never protruding its yellows and deep purples more than an inch or two above the turf, is a great and scarcely regarded treasure. I think of it when in England I walk on expensive Persian rugs; the same points of dense, discreet colour, the same proportion of ground to decoration; a sudden flash of the Hebrides in a rich man's rooms. It is a private signal to me, a bleeping underfoot, winking through the burr of conversation and offered drinks: Remember me."

     That passage is from Adam Nicolson's book Sea Room, his 'biography' of the three Shiant islands (which lie between Lewis/Harris and Skye). The pictures were taken beside the beach at Bosta on Great Bernera, off Lewis. For more on machair flowers click here. 

Comments

[Barbara]

Magic!

[oxslip]

Beautiful - a collage does it real justice, that's a good book too, makes me want to buy an island