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Scottish Wildflowers
The flowers on this website are to be found in Scotland, regardless of whether they are considered native.
Whether a flower is considered ‘native’ or ‘non-native’, is interesting. Nature is dynamic. It is constantly changing. Plants have been moving around the globe without any help from humans for millions of years. They shifted along with the plates, they drifted onto shores and they were carried by birds.
Webb, in 1985, suggested 8 criteria to judge whether a species was native or non-native. By Webb’s own admission, these criteria are indicative rather than definitive.
- Fossil evidence
- Habitat
- Historical evidence
- Geographical distribution
- Genetic diversity
- Frequency of known naturalisation
- Reproductive pattern
- Possible means of introduction
Despite the limitations of this approach, a plant’s ‘nativeness’ can (and often is) the difference between governments spending millions of pounds on preserving it or spending millions of pounds in trying to eradicate it.
Darwin’s theory was not that nature would reach a state of perfection and then never change. It constantly evolves. Eradication attempts are almost always unsuccessful in any case.
If you want to learn how to make a wildflower meadow, read this guide.
Click here to see a month-by-month flowering calendar.
