It's impossible to describe this beauty… Have you ever wandered through a lilac, purple or pink field? We are talking about heather. What a smell this amazing shrub of immortality emits! Heather fields in Scotland dream of seeing every tourist. They surprise with their asceticism and modesty, brightness and depth of shades. The national image of the Scots is the mauve heathland, which dissolves into the emerald green of the fields. Well, let's try to describe the heather fields in more detail. The pictures in the article will show you all their beauty.
Amazing plant - heather
Three-quarters of the world's purple shrubs are found in Scotland. The ancient inhabitants of this country believed that God himself decided to plant a honey plant on the slopes of the hills, where cold winds walk. Heather was rewarded with graceful flowers with a charming scent.
Heather is called an amazing evergreenshrub. It has narrow tetrahedral leaves, delicate small flowers resembling miniature bells. If you look closely at a separate branch, then the soul is overwhelmed with admiration. The leaves and flowers are very small, but there are a huge number of them, so they resemble pinkish clouds in the meadows. Photos of heather fields prove that once you get there, you plunge into the atmosphere of honey aroma and anxious buzzing of bees. I would like to recall the words from Robert Stevenson's ballad about an amazing plant:
Heather drink
Forgotten long ago.
And he was sweeter than honey, Drunkener than wine.
It was boiled in cauldrons
And drinking with the whole family
Baby-Meads
In the caves underground.
Heather is a flowering plant, but when it blooms, it looks like some kind of conifer. Short and small leaves resemble needles of cypress, juniper, spruce. For the winter, the plant does not shed its leaves-needles. They can remain on the bushes for several years, remaining green in winter. Sometimes purple twigs-inflorescences are already visible from under the snow. After all, the flowering of heather fields lasts more than two months. Dried flowers tend not to change color.
Beautiful heather legend
There is an old Scottish legend. Once upon a time, God erected impregnable rocks, endless wastelands and hills in this country. The Lord still very much wanted to settle oaks, roses, and honeysuckle in Scotland. But these plants did not want to live here. The land seemed too harsh to these fastidious cultures.
Then God turned to a humble undersized shrub - heather. As a reward, he gave the plant the strength of oak, the fragrance of honeysuckle, the tenderness and sweetness of a rose. For the Scots, the shrub has become a kind of talisman. The inhabitants of the northern country are sure that the heather fields will bloom as long as Scotland exists.
Heathfields in England
Scotland is an autonomous region of Great Britain, that is, England. In the northern part of this region is a national park - Yorkshire moorlands. The beauty of the scenery in this area is simply mesmerizing. Many artists have been inspired by the local steep mountains and lakes sprawling in the valleys.
In August, Wales, Yorkshire parks, Brighton, the foothills of the lakes of Scotland are covered with a lilac-pink color. It is here that the largest lake in England, Windermere, is located. A lilac-violet "carpet" stretches around it, seeming painted from afar. In the heathlands where heather grows, there are very few other representatives of the flora. He loves loose, acidic soil mixed with white sand. This soil is low in potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus.
How is heather used in Scotland?
Another thousand years ago, the ancient Celtic tribes used this plant. Roofs of houses were covered with dry stems, all kinds of household utensils were woven from them, leather and fabrics were dyed yellow. And for local sheep, this is the only food. Today we have learned how to make fodder flour from heather straw, which surpasses any other in its useful qualities.
BThe plant has great magical power. In pagan times, they were driven away from the dwellings of evil spirits. Many national Scottish holidays are not complete without decorating houses with heather branches. The plant also serves to create various aromatic potions.
Using sweet nectar
From July until late autumn, you can watch the generous and abundant flowering of pinkish-lilac heather fields, intoxicating with honey aroma. A large number of bees flock to the vast fields of this beautiful honey plant. In August, many beekeepers place hundreds of their hives closer to the moors. Heather is the main honey plant in Scotland. The secretion of sweet nectar is not hindered by either dry or rainy weather.
Heather honey is rich in minerals and proteins. Sweet honey nectar has a tart taste and amazing aroma. The taste of honey becomes even more expressive and unique after several years of storage. Heather nectar is added to the famous Scottish liqueur Drambuie. The drink has a very complex composition: aged whiskey, mountain herbs, heather honey. Heather is also used to make a traditional Scottish strong beer - ale.
Making jewelry from plant stems
Heather contains a lot of organic acids, complex phenolic compounds, alkaloids, minerals. This allows the plant to be widely used in medicine. It has a diaphoretic, disinfectant, sedative, hypnotic, wound-healing effect. FromHeather end branches make fragrant and he althy tea.
The wood of the bush can also serve as a material for the production of jewelry. From the woody stems of heather in the Scottish town of Pitlochry they make beautiful souvenirs.
One small Scottish company has managed to patent a technological process for processing plant wood. This made it possible to produce jewelry with the most beautiful design. The Scots call them heatherms. Special processing of heather allows you to create the most imaginative patterns. First, natural material is pressed into blocks, and then fancy figures are cut out of them, polished, varnished, framed in silver. Each such piece reflects the exquisite palette of colors of Scotland's nature.
Heater fields in Russia
In the middle zone of Europe there are no such expanses where moorlands could be located. In Russia, small thickets of plants are found in the European part, Eastern and Western Siberia. It is there that it is found on the edges of pine forests, on rocky slopes, peat bogs.
Modern breeders have developed cultivars of heather. In the Moscow region, as well as other regions of the country, rock gardens are decorated with them. Shrubs with different colors of inflorescences were bred by specialists. White heather is associated with protection, fulfillment of desires. The lavender color of the plant is associated with admiration and loneliness. Purple heather symbolizes beauty. You can wish good luck with a bunch of pink flowers.
