2024 County Report for East Ross & Cromarty

Brian Ballinger, Mary Dean

This year we and others have recorded in many parts of the vice county and 6917 records have been entered on the DDb to date. We are grateful to all the contributors.

Field meetings led:

  1. Inverness Botany Group meeting from Fortrose to Chanonry Point on May 11th.
  2. Joint meeting between the Botanical Society of Scotland and the Inverness Botany Group at the Seaboard villages on July 11th.

BRB contributed to the Botanical Society of Scotland’s Urban flora Project and has entered over 41,000 records from various parts of Scotland including Easter Ross over the last 10 years (the project as a whole has produced over 100,000 records).

The following publications appeared in 2024:

  1. Ballinger B.R. Near your House - Plants near houses in Easter Ross BSBI Scotland Newsletter 46 13-15
  2. Ballinger B.R. Urban and Rural Woodlands in Easter Ross BSS News 122 23-25

Exhibits at the Scottish Botanists’ Conference:

  1. Ballinger B. The Flora of Bus Stops - while you are waiting for that bus
  2. Ballinger B. Easter Ross town walls - a plant count

Talks

A brief talk by BRB to the Highland Biological Recording Group at Strathpeffer on November 9th ”Plant Zonation on Walls”.

One new vice county record was made, dating back to May 2023. Gus Routledge found a colony of Fritillaria meleagris (Fritillary) in a grassy area above the saltmarsh zone of the Cromarty Firth. We have not yet investigated its origin.