On the Wildside: Spell-binding aura of wild flowers in the Ochils

It was a colony of northern marsh orchids and there can be few other wildflowers that hold such inner depths of brilliance.

I hunkered down to examine one of these orchids more closely; its intricate arrangement of claret petals drawing me irresistibly.

It is impossible to tire of their timeless elegance, so exquisite in every way and forever a source of great personal excitement whenever I discover these purple patches of perfection.

I took some photographs, and then wondered why I had bothered, because I have snapped these natural gems on many occasions before and have an abundance of their images.

But northern marsh orchids do that to you, and every occasion I stumble upon these dazzling beauties, it feels like it is for first time, such is their spell-binding aura.

Indeed, orchids have enthralled humankind since the earliest of times and have long been associated with love and fertility. At one time, concoctions using ground orchid tubers were even used as aphrodisiacs.

The edge of this track in the western Ochils, not too far from Alloa, was home to a number of other attractive wildflowers too.

Among these was heath bedstraw, a sprawling mat-forming plant with the tiniest dusting of white flower heads. In some of the damper margins I came across lousewort, a plant so-called because it was once believed they helped to infest sheep with lice.

Mountain pansies also occur here. In the Ochils the purple variety predominates but in some parts of the country yellow-flowering mountain pansies are more common.

This abundance of these hill flowers acts as a magnet for butterflies and among the most prevalent is the green-veined white, which is on the wing for much of the summer and has the most exquisite and delicately marked wings.

In Alva Glen, the scarce northern brown argus butterfly is also about at the moment, seeking out yellow-bloomed rock-rose to lay their eggs on.