Garden quiz

I suspect that this plant raises more queries than anything else at Arduaine. Visitors are always coming up to say 'I've seen this little purple plant . . . . . . . ' - most folk think it's a crocus, though one lady thought it was a rhododendron, for some reason.

It's actually Lathraea clandestina, the purple toothwort. This is a parasitic plant which feeds from the living root systems of other plants, notably willow and poplar - it's a native of western Europe, but not the UK. Having no foliage, it's only conspicuous in spring when the hooded purple flowers burst through the ground, dying away after a month or so and leaving little sign of its presence. It spreads by the forcible ejection of its seeds which can travel some distance, though I suspect that it might also be carried on the feet of small mammals and birds as the seed is quite sticky. We have many and expanding colonies here - it does no obvious harm to its hosts. The literature claims that Arduaine's colonies are the furthest north in Britain, but it also grows at Inverewe Garden in Wester Ross.