A New Approach to Scottish Mountain Vegetation

Abstract

The methods of vegetation analysis and description developed in the Breadalbane district of Perthshire, Scotland were applied more widely to the mountain vegetation of the Highlands. The principal ecological factors at work in determining vegetation development in this region are described, with emphasis on the influence of snow cover and degree of oceanicity. Comparisons are made with the situation in Scandinavia. The interrelationship of altitude and exposure is shown in the form of diagrams for 3 key areas of the Highlands. Examples of sub-alpine scrub, acidophilous dwarf-scrub, heaths and bogs, moss heaths, Dryas heaths and snow bed communities are then described in detail. These can be divided into 2 categories; communities which, like the Rhacomitrium heaths, have part of their principal range in Scotland, and which are well enough represented to show a response to change in the ecological factors in different parts of the country and those, such as Dryas heaths, which occur in Scotland only as the scattered fragments of well-known Scandinavian types. Salix myrsinites scrub, Betula nana bog, lichen heath, Dryas heath and certain moss and acidophilous dwarf-shrub heaths are here described for the 1st time from Scotland.