So small, they could easily be passed by without even being noticed, their delicate flowers with their sweet fragrance only found in tiny pockets of ancient Highland pine woodland.
Now, however, an army of volunteer gardeners in the heart of the Cairngorm National Park has given the little twinflower a fighting chance of surviving, by growing the rare beauty alongside their garden plants.
In gardens dotted around Grantown-on-Spey, carefully tended by unlikely plant conservationists, new populations of the threatened flower have been growing for two years and are now set to be transplanted in carefully chosen locations, bringing to a peak a ground-breaking project that has merged species experts with amateur gardeners.
Cuttings of the rare twinflowers were taken from a handful of locations around the Speyside town and given to volunteers to tend and nurture until they were well enough established to be returned to the wild.
It’s hoped once established in their new locations, they will attract pollinators and eventually spread naturally.
The project has been overseen by Plantlife Scotland, which has forged links with amateur gardeners and volunteers – called Flora Guardians – in an effort to help save rare species of plants from being lost forever.
The tiny flower, with its distinctive slender Y-shaped stem from which each arm grows a pretty pale pink bell-shaped flower, was once widespread throughout Scotland.
Its thick creeping stem allows the plant to form ‘mats’ on the ground, while at night its blossom emits a fragrance that’s been likened to the butterfly orchid or lilac.
Changes in land practices, over-grazing by sheep and deer, and loss of its favoured ancient Caledonia pinewood habitat meant its numbers have diminished dramatically – the twinflower is said to have declined by 44% since the 1970s.
It’s left remaining patches of twinflowers in woodlands too fragmented for pollinators to properly cross-pollinate plants or for viable seeds to be produced.
As a result, the little flower has been identified as a conservation priority in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, the Cairngorms Local Biodiversity Action Plan, and is included on the Scottish Biodiversity List.
Efforts to boost twinflower numbers is part of the plant charity’s wider Cairngorms Rare Plants and Wild Connections Project, which has connected plant conservationists with landowners and volunteers.
Among its aims is to save the national park’s wildflower meadows, with their evocatively named species such as devil’s bit scabious and mountain everlasting, and to look for ancient grasslands with brightly coloured waxcap fungi.
The project’s ‘Flora Guardians’ are also gathering information which it’s hoped may help save the arctic alpine flora of the Cairngorm mountains.
According to Alistair Whyte, head of Plantlife Scotland, the twinflowers project has taken six years to develop, and involved the same kind of government permissions as would be required if they were reintroducing a wild animal to the area.
“Plantlife has been working across the country to try to save the fate of plants that are particularly threatened with extinction, and the twinflower in Cairngorm is really struggling at the moment because of habitat loss.
“It likes old, ancient Caledonia pinewoods and has become very fragmented so pollinators can’t fly between them. We need to go in and replant those areas and introduce twinflowers to areas where it should be easier to cross pollinate and produce viable seed.
“A lot of the time conservation in the past has been quite technical and scientific and a bit difficult for the public to get involved in. We wanted to give communities a chance to get to know the plant and get hands on.
“The idea is, if you don't know something is there you can't protect it or fight for it, but if you have been involved in helping those species then there’s a good chance you will be an advocate for it in the future.”
The project was launched in 2016 and involved extensive research into the health of the existing twinflowers and potential recipient sites, as well as training volunteers to help with the work.
Two years ago, cuttings were carefully taken from healthy populations of twinflowers and nurtured in trays in volunteers’ gardens.
“It is all heavily controlled to make sure that the right species is replanted,” Mr Whyte added. “We had to get a licence from NatureScot and go through the same process for reintroducing twinflower as someone who might want to reintroduce a beaver or any other species.”
Having been cared for in back gardens across Grantown-on-Spey – a task that often required simply finding the right spot to keep them happy and plucking the occasional weed from their pots - the plants will soon be reintroduced to their new sites, including a woodland at nearby Carrbridge.
“We had a real crossover of volunteers – some were people who are into their plants, and others don’t have any gardening background,” he adds.
“Luckily the plants don’t need much gardening skills, they need very little in terms of ongoing maintenance.
“All the volunteers have been pleasantly surprised, they’ve had good success rates, the plants have thrived and are looking healthy.”
Among the volunteers who have tended to the delicate cuttings is Cairngorm National Park Chief Executive Grant Moir.
He said: “It has been great to be involved as a volunteer in helping to expand the range of the twinflower in the Cairngorms National Park.
“Taking in the small cuttings and seeing them grow over two years has been rewarding and I am really looking forward to seeing them translocated to their new sites this winter and then starting the process again.”
Twinflowers pop up in fragmented locations throughout the north of Scotland, including a small population in Angus, one in Perthshire and another north of Inverness.
A second twinflowers project is also underway in Royal Deeside, where volunteers are also working with an estate to grow and repopulate the plants.
While a similar project is also underway for another threatened flower, one-flowered wintergreen, also called St Olaf’s Candlestick because of its single nodding white flower at the top of a stem and rosette of leaves at its base.
Like twinflowers, it grows in pine forests in north-east Scotland, with most current sites in commercial pine plantations where harvesting and habitat loss has led to them being classed as “vulnerable”.
The Cairngorms Rare Plants and Wild Connections Project is also using local volunteers to help gather information at higher levels in the mountains which it’s hoped may save the area’s arctic alpine flora.
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