Scots Pine

The Scots Pine is found in scattered remnant forests in the Central and Eastern Highlands, with a few patches in the West. Some of the best forests are Glen Affric, Rothiemurchus and Abernethy on Speyside, Glen Tanar and Braemar on Upper Deeside, and Loch Tulla and Loch Maree in the West. Its Gaelic name is seen all over the Highlands, for example Meall a‘ ghuibhais on Speyside – the ‘Mount of the Pine’, and nearby Badaguish – the ‘Pine Grove’, ‘giuthas’ and its various spellings pronounced ‘goosh’. Birch and Juniper and Heather and Blaeberry are the common plants of the Pine wood – ‘coille giuthas’. Within and out with its domains it has often been planted by landowners and Chiefs, as its height and dark evergreen umbrella-like canopy make it stand out in the landscape as marker of boundary or big house or Warrior’s grave. It is the Clan Badge of McGregor, McNab and McKinnon. It can be tall and straight and largely branchless below the high umbrella crown, or wide and squat with many great twisting limbs. The rusty brown bark is made up of layers of thin plates, and the upper trunk and branches are distinctively orange. The dark needles are in pairs on the outer twigs. In Gaelic needles are ‘snàthad’, pronounced ‘snaha’. The flowers that will form cones protrude from bunches of needles, the male a furry spike of yellow, with the female crimson at its tip. The female forms into a hard green cone, maturing to brown over two seasons, and opening to scatter seeds – seeds much valued by squirrels and by birds such as Scottish Crossbill and Crested Tit. The forest floor is brown with the fallen cones, and flakes of bark, and twigs, and old needles. In some parts of the Highlands where Pine has been widespread for a long time the timber has been harvested for boat building and for the tar made from its resin. An old Gaelic name for the tree is ‘peith’, and a ‘peithire’ was a forester looking after a pinewood.