Location and history
There is a wooded peninsula jutting out from its southern shore at the western end of Loch Drumbeg (NC 112325, photo 1), separated from the area to its west by a substantial stone wall. It is named on recent O.S. maps as An Abha (the hand net), although on older maps this name seems to have applied to a larger area, taking in woodland further to the west.
It contains a number of large Scots pines (photo 2). From a comparison of the earlier 1:10,560 scale O.S. maps, based on surveys carried out in 1875 and 1903 (photos 3-4), these trees appear to have been planted at some time during the last quarter of the 19th century (the symbols for conifers are just visible in the later map). At this time Assynt was part of the Sutherland estates.
They may be the same age as Scots pines planted around Lochinver (although some of these are earlier plantings) and perhaps also those, now ailing, on islands in Loch Assynt. It should be said that there have been no native Scots pines on the west coast this far north since the Bronze Age, more than 4000 years ago; those are the ones whose stumps turn up in peat.
Autumn visit
10th October 2025 was the first day of bryologist Gordon Rothero’s customary autumn visit to Assynt and we spent the morning recording in this 1km square (NC1132; map, photo 5).
Starting on the Culkein Drumbeg peat road, we wandered over to woodland on the margins of Loch Drumbeg, explored the edge of An Abha, and made our way back to the peat road up a craggy burn valley beside the old fank at Bad an Aon Tighe. I returned to the area on 27th December to take more landscape photos.
The peat road was constructed to access ground from which peat could be dug, but many of these boggy areas have since re-wilded. Shallow pools (photo 6) contain the delicate stems of lesser bladderwort, Utricularia minor, the smallest of those found locally. It only flowers in exceptional summers, but may be recognised by its slender leaves and small bladders (photo 7), which contain distinctive quadrifid hairs. In the autumn the stems are terminated by tight globular clusters of leaves, known as winter buds (photo 8), from which new plants will develop in the following spring.
Parts of this area have been seriously damaged by fire in recent decades, as evidenced by dead trunks of downy birch, up to 15cm in diameter, on an exposed rocky ridge (photo 9). Tree regeneration is slow, discouraged by browsing, formerly by cattle and sheep, now mainly by deer.
However, woodland nearer to the loch shows fewer signs of damage, with sprawling rowans and willows amongst the downy birches (photo 10), and dense marshy vegetation along the loch shore. Lush bryophyte cover contributed to Gordon’s growing species list (photo 11), and in one place we found a fine dark-brown example of Assynt’s only widely distributed land mollusc, the large black slug Arion ater (photo 12).
The pines
I last explored An Abha in April 1995, when the presence of a large bull just off the peat road complicated access. A fence continuing the line of the old wall can be negotiated at its northern end (photo 13), and there is a tumbledown section further to the south, now used by deer to access the peninsula.
The old Scots pines are really impressive, up to 1m in diameter at the base (photo 14), and still going strong, although shedding the odd branch. Gordon climbed up the hill bearing some of the largest trees, but the area was rather too dry to add much to his list. He did, however, find black-tufted moss Glyphomitrium daviesii plentifully on gneiss outcrops. Although once regarded as a rarity, it is now known to be widespread in Assynt.
He also came across a large patch of a striking foliose lichen on one outcrop and collected a voucher specimen (photo 15). This was later identified by Dr Brian Coppins, formerly the lichenologist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, as one of the ‘specklebellies’, Pseudocyphellaria intricata, and it now resides in the national lichen collection. It is a rare constituent of Assynt’s Atlantic Rainforest, only previously recorded from two local sites.
Bad an Aon Tighe
Leaving the wooded enclosure behind us, we worked our way through thin birchwood, with scattered older trees, to the burn valley bearing this name, which translates as place/thicket of a single house, although why is not immediately apparent. Under the birches were the orange trumpets of chanterelle Cantharellus cibarius (photo 16), a common (and edible) mycorrhizal partner of downy birch, although also found under other trees.
An older birch, with a wind-lifted root-plate, was beginning to succumb to the attentions of a less friendly fungus, the wood-rotting shaggy scalycap Pholiota squarrosa (photos 17-18), which often occurs, as here, in dense clusters.
Crossing the mouth of the burn valley, we made for some crags on its southern bank (on the righthand side of photo 20), where Gordon found indicators of base-enrichment. These included black spleenwort Asplenium adiantum-nigrum, the liverworts Plagiochila killarniensis and Pressia quadrata and the mosses Fissidens dubius and Tortella tortuosa. We later discovered that a mafic (basic) dyke slices through the gneiss in this immediate area.
A conspicuous feature of this valley is a large stone-walled sheep fank (photos 19-20), which appears to have been constructed at some time in the early 20th century, since it is not shown on the 2nd edition of the 1:10,560 O.S. map, based on a re-survey in 1903 (photo 4). It is now superseded by a ‘high-tech’ metal and concrete version just off the roadside at the start of the peat road.
Borrowpit
There was one last surprise, just north of the gate where we rejoined the peat road, in a small borrowpit on the west side (NC111321). Gordon was adding a few ‘ruderal’ species from its floor (photo 21) and drew my attention to a small flowering plant with paired ovate leaves (photo 22).
This was the tiny annual chaffweed Lysimachia (Anagallis) minima, which we first discovered, ‘new’ to Assynt, just above the shoreline at Rubh’an Dunain in 1991. Seen close-up (photo 23), it has a reddish flush and distinctive globular fruits. Although originally restricted to the coast this far north, we have found it locally on roadsides, to which where its seeds must be transferred, as here, in salted grit or on vehicle tyres.
After a last look south along the peat road, which provides one of the best walks in the Drumbeg area (photo 24), we made our way back to the car. The final tally was 45 liverworts and 75 mosses, a respectable total for three hours work in a patch of unexceptional habitat not far off the road, a tribute both to Gordon’s expertise and the rich diversity of bryophytes found in Assynt.
Ian M. Evans