The Orkney Library & Archive Interactive Orcadian Flora Trail was created to highlight the diverse and varied plant life that can be found in Orkney. Our raised planters represent five different habitats, and feature plants and flowers typically found in these environments. The trail also includes tactile play equipment including wooden panels, a wooden finger maze and a set of musical chimes.
The trail is also an opportunity to hear the local Orcadian dialect, with flower poems created and recorded by Orkney Voices. You can listen to the poems on this page, grouped by the different habitats in which they appear. This page is also accessible from the Flora Trail by scanning the QR code on any of the information panels on the planters.
Orkney Flower Poems – written and performed by Orkney Voices
Wild Flooers
A Group Poem about Dandelions and flowers that look like them
To a Primrose
Trowie Glivs
Red Campion
Sweet Cicely
Birds Foot Trefoil
Sea Pinks
Spring Squill
Common Vetch
Lyme Grass
Marram Gress
Hill Bark
Viper’s Bugloss
Self Heal
Lady’s Bedstraw
Daisies – Cockalowrie
Dandelion
Blue Bonnets
Bright Eye
Marsh Marigolds
Marsh Marigolds
Bog Cotton
Ragged Robin
Iris, Yillo Lily, Segs, Yillo Flags
The Seasons
Written by John Skea and Sarah Jane Gibbon. Sung by Sarah Jane Gibbon and Emma Grieve.
Tactile Play Equipment
At Orkney Library & Archive you can find a range of books and other resources relating to our native plant life. Some relevant books and archives are listed below but for more information just come in and speak to the staff or browse our online catalogue.
Books
A Countrywoman’s Diary and other works by Bessie Skea (500 Y)
Gardening in Orkney and Shetland by John Burns (635 YZ)
Naturally Orkney Volume 1 & 2 by Raymond Besant (508 Y)
The Orkney Book of the Scottish Primrose (Primula Scotica) by Tim Dean (582 Y)
The Orkney Book of Wildflowers by Tim Dean (582 Y)
Orkney Nature by R J Berry (578 Y)
Wildflowers in Orkney by Elaine R Bullard (581 Y)
Archives
Ernest Marwick – Sound Archive – conversation with Elaine Bullard on gardening in Orkney (D31/TR/156)
Flora Orcadensis by George Low (580 Y)
Magnus Spence papers – notebook containing a draft of Island Floras (D32/4/22)
Orkney Wild Flowers by Margaretta C Moodie (scrapbook of flowers) (D1/1182)
Flora of Birsay by John Spence – notebook from the Robert Rendall papers (D27/3/15)
The Seasons and other poems by John Skea (800 Y)
This project was supported by the Scottish Government Public Library Improvement Fund.
A number of individuals, groups and organisations assisted us with this project and we would like to thank St Colms Cafe & Crafts for building the planters, Martin Kenny for supplying and planting the flowers, and for all his advice, Anne Bignall for her wonderful flower illustrations, Rhona Jenkins Design for creating the information panels, Alison Miller and Orkney Voices for writing and performing the flower poems, Orkney Talking Newspaper for recording, and Sarah Jane Gibbon and Emma Grieve for their song.