Banffshire, v.c. 94

Banffshire is a superb place to botanise! The county boasts a variety of habitats, starting with dunes along the northern coast that transition into arable farmland, improved grassland, heathland and then montane habitats in the northern Cairngorms where the county boundary grazes the slopes of both Cairn Gorm and Ben Macdui at its southwestern edge. It also contains notable rivers meandering through famous glens including the Spey, Deveron, Avon, Fiddich and Livet.

The earliest vascular plant record is of Oysterplant Mertensia maritima (image on right), dated pre-1836 and still found in the county today.

The most recent Flora of Banffshire was written by William Grant Craib and published in 1912 but Andy Amphlett produced two much more up to date checklists available for download:

• Flora of Glenlivet Estate (2008)
• Checklist and Rare Plant Register taxon list - April 2015 (2015).

The Cairngorms National Park traverses multiple BSBI vice counties but is an interesting recording unit in its own right. Please contact Andy Amphlett Amphlett1958@gmail.com with any questions about these resources:

Rare Plant Register of the Cairngorms (pdf)

Data sheet for Rare Plant Register (xlsx)

Distribution maps of rare plant register taxa in the Cairngorms (Links below go to public Dropbox folders)

• Large Maps (1492 x 964 pixels) - 232 MB folder
• Smaller maps (1000 x 646 pixels) - 55 MB folder

Flora of the Cairngorms (pdf)

Data sheet for Flora of the Cairngorms (xlsx).