Echoes of Mount Parnassus

The Grass of Parnassus is one of my favourite flowers and this is the first that I have seen this year on the heaths of the Sands of Forvie. Also known as bog-stars, they occur across the Northern Hemisphere in Arctic and Alpine habitats, as well as on dune slacks and fens, heaths, swamps and moist woodlands.

They are not, of course, grasses; the name is said to come from ancient Greece where the cattle on Mount Parnassus developed a taste for the plant and hence it was regarded as an 'honorary grass'.

Best zoomified.