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Linnaea borealis
The beautiful Twinflower 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 is one of our smallest and most delicate native flowers.
Twinflower is confined to Scotland. It grows mainly in the native, open, pine woods, particularly in the Cairngorms, and is an Arctic-Alpine plant that is a relic of the Ice Age.
The clearance of native woodlands before the 1930s resulted in severe losses of this little flower. Continued habitat destruction and changes in woodland management have also lead to declines in populations.
Twinflower is the County Flower of Inverness-shire.
The isolation of the remaining sites of Twinflower leads to poor seed production and thus contributes to its continued decline. Other threats include; mechanical harvesting of timber, the deliberate thickening of forests leading to excess shade and poor management of pine plantations leading to single age structure woodland without a niche for seedlings to develop.
One of Plantlife’s most exciting projects has been research into how the historical management of ancient pine plantation may have benefited Twinflower. A study of how timber was grown and extracted in the 18th and 19th centuries has led to a proposal to test whether these methods could boost Twinflower populations today. Read more about our work with Twinflower here.
We’re continuing our work with Twinflower through the Resilience and Recovery, Helping Rare Species Adapt to a Changing World project. Read more about our work here.
Without intervention, the delicate pink blooms of the rare Twinflower could disappear from Scotland.
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