The Botany Group's trip to Midland Hill, Orphir, was mercifully not attended with the usual sheets of rain. And the wind was bearable. Ten of us attended and most people had not visited the hill before. There was a very rich mix of plants in what was mostly heathland with some grassland. In addition to the flora (and the baby frog, common blue butterfly and magpie moth) the hill offers stupendous views to Stromness and Hoy and across the whole of Scapa Flow. Scotland was visible in the distance too. A blissful place to be on a sunny day...(We understand!)

The plants we noted included:

• Alpine meadow-rue
• Angelica
• Bell heather
• Blaeberry
• Bog asphodel
• Brighteye (micrantha and arctica)
• Butterwort
• Carnation Sedge
• Cat's-ear
• Commom cottongrass
• Common mouse-ear
• Creeping bent
• Cross-leaved heather
• Crowberry
• Field horsetail
• Grass of Parnassus
• Green-ribbed sedge
• Hard fern
• Heath bedstraw (or common?)
• Heath milkwort
• Heath rush (beautiful black and white flowers)
• Heath speedwell
• Heath spotted orchid
• Heath woodrush
• Lousewort (common and marsh)
• Marsh arrowgrass
• Marsh marigold
• Marsh horsetail
• Marsh ragwort
• Marsh thistle
• Meadow buttercup
• Meadowsweet
• Meadow vetchling
• Mouse-ear hawkweed
• Northern marsh orchid
• Primrose (still in flower)
• Ragged Robin
• Red clover
• Reindeer moss
• Rosebay willowherb
• Sea plantain
• Self-heal
• Slender St. John's wort
• Sneezewort
• Sorrel
• Tormentil
• Tufted hair-grass
• Twayblades
• Violet (leaves only)
• Viviparous fescue
• Wavy hair-grass
• White clover
• Woodrush
• Yellow rattle
• Yorkshire fog

Angelica

Bell Heather

Grass of Parnassus

           Wild thyme

Two common blues

Common blue

Dioecious sedge

Wild thyme and tormentil

Marsh arrowgrass

Eyebright Euphrasia micrantha

Eyebright Euphrasia arctica

Eyebright tall Euphrasia micrantha

View of Hoy from Midland Hill, Orphir