Linnaea borealis Twinflower

Linnaea borealis©Mike Scott

This beautiful plant has two pink bell-like flowers on a slender stem, and a thicker stem below which creeps along the ground, forming small mats of the plant.

It grows mainly in the native, open, pine woods of Scotland, particularly in the Cairngorms, and is an Arctic-Alpine plant that is a relic of the Ice Age.

Twinflower is now found at only about 50 unrelated sites, leading to poor seed production and thus contributing to its continued decline. Other threats to its future are overgrazing by deer or sheep, mechanical harvesting of timber, and the deliberate thickening of forests leading to excess shade.