To the north-east of Portree along the coast lies a tetrad that I had hardly been into before last Saturday. It was showing up as having lots of records not re-found during the current recording date range (2000-2019) including taxa suggesting quite nice habitat like Arabis hirsuta (Hairy Rock-cress), Saxifraga hypnoides (Mossy Saxifrage) and Silene acaulis (Moss Campion). On Saturday I managed to find some of these (all of those above) and add a total of 57 new taxa to the tetrad list including a few plants of Petasites hybridus (Butterbur). The only other site for this in NG54 is at Brochel on Raasay where a handful of plants has persisted for over 80 years, and perhaps much longer.
There was a great deal of the well-named Shining Crane’s-bill (Geranium lucidum), only ever recorded from ten tetrads in VC104 and known from this area previously, but this has to be Skye HQ for it.
Geranium lucidum (Shining Crane’s-bill)
Spring was springing:
Bluebell, Red Campion, Thale Cress
I like to find Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale Cress) in places like this rather than as an urban weed – it is especially common in Portree and Kyleakin.
I found a couple of shells of Balea sarsii (Tree Snail) and brought one home to photograph, but at that point there was an accident involving a lens that was not the shape I thought it was:
Ex-snail shell
Oh yes, and the first tick of the year attached itself to me. It was still March!
Tags: Plants, Slugs & Snails
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles 
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