One of Coll's great attractions is the presence of so many different wild flowers. There’s a steady trickle of display from March onwards, but the main impact is late June and July when it has to be seen to be believed. It is then that you really get the scent in the breezes. So let's pinpoint a few of these wildflowers - some obvious on the island and some, less obvious, that are there all the same.

The Latin name of Cotton Grass is Eriophorum, but the common names are much more interesting than the botanical versions: 'Cats Tails' and 'Smiddle Flock' are just two examples. The latter seems to be related to the fact that the plants look rather like flocks of wool; and I'm informed that 'smiddle' is a word applied to sedges in general.

The hairs of Cotton Grass have been used for pillows since the days of Pliny - and you Bog Asphodel can't get a better recommendation than that. It means that everywhere near the damp moorland where the plants thrive in the olden and not-so-olden days local pillows have been cotton-grass-filled. Although the plants' heads are much too brittle to weave successfully, it has sometimes been tried as an alternative to cotton and was actually called 'Arctic Wool'. On other real ethnic occasions it's been tried in paper manufacture (perhaps it came out like papyrus) and the cotton was used in lamps as a primitive but successful wick material.

Bog Asphodel is another attractive plant found in similar situations in bogs and wet heaths. Although it is very abundant there, it is quite possibly at risk due to many modern drainage schemes. The common names for it are fascinating: 'Bag Bastard', 'Yellow Grass', 'Knavery', 'Maiden Hair'. The flowers are rich bright yellow and Gerard suggested that the last name was because, "In Lancashire it is used by women to dye their hair of a yellowish colour". The full Latin name is Narthecium ossifragum and the second one - meaning 'bone-breaking' - refers to the suggestion that the plant's herbage had the effect of softening the bones of cattle that fed on it. There doesn't appear to be any substantial foundation for this, except that cattle continuously grazing on sites where the plant growth might be mineral-deficient could suffer bone disorders.

Lastly, there's Loosestrife, or Purple Loosestrife as it is often called; Lythrum salicaria to the botanist. and a really striking wild flower to the rest of us.ln Coil, if you are lucky, you can see it flowering amongst the mixed fodder on the way to the North Shore. And we've got lots of common names again: 'Purple Willow', Flowering Sally', 'Blooming Sally', 'Partyke'. This plant crops up in Shakespeare's "Hamlet":
“…There with fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies and
long purples. . . "
Although the plant shows up in the Millais painting of Ophelia, it has been suggested that the plant Shakespeare actually meant was the large purple orchis... But more of this in my next.