Lesson Four
The Moors
Isn't it wild and beautiful up here? The moors are a rugged patchwork of greens, browns and purples, rolling away as far as the eye can see. Okay, so that got a little poetic. Let's take a walk and find some plants.
Moorland Ecosystem
A moorland habitat is an area of high ground (like a hillside or upland) which has very acidic soil. It tends to be covered by low lying, scrubby plants and grasses, with no trees in sight. This particular moor is a mixture of different terrains, including heather moorland, grassland and bogs. We'll be briefly touching on each of these today as they're all home to some very interesting plants.
Heather Moorland
Heather is the plant people most closely associate with moorland because it provides the scrubby, wild look and the striking colours. Heather moorland has to be managed by periodically burning the landscape to get rid of the old, tough stems and allow the heather to regrow from the roots up.
Heather is a low-growing plant that blooms in wonderful shades of purple, pink, white and even red. It has very woody stems, rarely grows taller than a metre and is very hardy, standing up well to cold conditions (meaning its very suited to the high, exposed ground of the moor).
Heather played an important role in early wizarding history as it was commonly used in the crafting of brooms (besoms). These were the magical transport of choice back in the days before the statute of secrecy, as your muggle neighbour wouldn't think twice about an innocent broomstick propped in the corner. Heather is perfectly suited for making a brush to sweep with but unfortunately, it isn't very aerodynamic. Now that we no longer need our brooms to resemble household tools, heather has been phased out as a tail-twig material.
Wildflowers
Shall we have a brief rest on this patch of grass? If you'll look around you, you'll notice that it isn't all heather up here. Many different varieties of wildflowers can be found on the uplands. You'll see common flowers like white and yellow daisies (useful in the Shrinking Solution), shaggy dandelions and blue-purple harebells (which are sometimes called Scot's bluebells). You might also want to watch out for a particularly prickly customer: the Scotch thistle. Those can grow over 3 metres tall and are instantly recognisable thanks to their purple flowers and frosted appearance.
A useful plant that you'll want to be aware of here is lady's mantel. There are many varieties of it around but most of them have fan shaped leaves and tiny, lime green flowers that lack petals. Lady's mantel is used in the beautification potion. It's also favoured by alchemists in their experiments, which lead to its Latin name: Alchemilla.
This yellow flowered plant might look a little familiar as it's closely related to silverweed, a plant we covered last lesson. This is tormentil, which is also known as erect cinquefoil. You can identify it through its characteristic four-petaled flowers. It's root tastes incredibly bitter, though is regarded as a good (if disgusting) cure for toothache. A very strong red dye can be extracted from it as well.
This little pink flower is centaury. It's a very rare sight in Scotland but you'll sometimes be lucky enough to find it in dry, grassy places. It grows half a metre in height and has a characteristic rosette of leaves. It's commonly used to help with gastric trouble.
If you combine centaury with tormentil and a few other herbs, you can create an efficacious treatment for the bites of certain magical and non-magical animals.
Bog Plants
Tread carefully now, it can be very easy to get stuck in a bog. We'll be keeping to the edges so that nobody sinks. It's daylight so we should be safe from hinkypunks but don't go following any mysterious lights, whatever you do!
Bogs are very unique habitats. They form in wet areas as particular types of plants, like sphagnum mosses, break down and create a rich, sticky substance known as peat. Plants that thrive here have to cope with the constantly wet conditions and also a lack of nutrients, as blanket bogs get their water from rainfall (which is low in the minerals needed by plants).
This white flowered plant here right at the edge is moondew. A liquid is distilled from it and then used in potion making. Its most notable use is in the Wiggenweld potion but it also features in some recipes for the Draught of Living Death and the Antidote to Common Poisons. Its magical properties were discovered by the legendary Druidess Cliodna back in the Middle Ages. Some butterbeer aficionados find that adding moondew to their drink makes for an extra sweet treat.
On paper, it can be easy to get moondew mixed up with sundew, another bog plant. They're very different - for a start, sundew is carnivorous and gets the nutrients it needs by eating insects. The varieties of sundew that grow around here are quite easy to spot due to their reddish stalks and the little sticky globules they use to catch their prey.
This shrub is bog myrtle, also called sweet gale. Its leaves grow in a signature spiral pattern and have slightly crinkly edges. The plant relies on microorganisms in its roots to provide the nitrogen it needs to survive in the poor conditions of the bog. You'll be able to identify it thanks to it's attractive, resiny scent. Many legends are told of its mystical power to ward off insects, so if you've been bitten by the midges today, you might want to take a sprig with you. And please don't make any snide comments about a certain bathroom dwelling ghost when you get back to school. We really don't want another flood!
Bonus: Roadside Plants
Rather than taking a portkey, I thought we'd walk back to school along the road. A lot of plants grow well in disturbed ground, like fields or the verges at the sides of roads and paths. A few of the plants you'll have covered in your first herbology class will grow here, including silvery stemmed knotgrass and belladonna with its black berries.
This one down here is sneezewort. You can recognise it during the summer thanks to its extravagant white flowers and dark green leaves. Those leaves can be dried and crushed to create a sneezing powder, which was previously used to clear blocked sinuses but is now more commonly used by pranksters. For magical purposes, it's particularly good in potions that relate to confusion and hot-headedness, like the Befuddlement Draught.
This plant with the oval, scaly leaves is greater plantain (sometimes called rat's tail). While we only use it in a handful of potions, the Anglo Saxon's regarded it as one of the nine most powerful healing herbs in Britain. Perhaps some of its secrets have been lost to time - anyone feel like experimenting a little?
Right, that's quite enough for one day. Let's get back to the castle!