The Sunart Oakwoods

The woodlands which fringe Loch Sunart form one of the largest areas of ancient native broad-leaved woodland which still remains in Britain. If you walk through the woods today, by far the most common tree you will see is oak (both sessile and pedunculate). This is partly because oak grows well in the infertile, acid soils which have developed over the moine schist and granite bedrock.

The other reason for its dominance is the long history of management in the woodlands which favoured oak to produce charcoal for lead and iron smelting, timber for housing and fuel, and bark for curing leather. The evidence of this management can still be seen in the woods in the form of woodland archaeology, including the trees themselves - old coppice stools, and even older pollards from earlier wood pasture systems.

Other trees you will see in the wood include rowan with its creamy flowers in spring, which develop over summer into vibrant red berries in the autumn to fuel the small birds for the winter to come, downy birch with its paper-like silvery bark and the evergreen holly with its spiked leathery leaves. Aspen is an occasional tree in the woods, forming thickets quivering in the slightest breeze and providing blazing golds amongst the palette of autumn colours. In occasional richer areas such as along burnsides, ash, elm and hazel grow together providing variety in the woodland.

The floor of the oak woodlands is most often grassy or heathy, with carpets of mosses and ferns which give a year round variation in textures and shades of green. Blaeberries grow in the heathy areas providing an autumn feast for many animals ahead of the long northern winter.

Splashes of colour emerge on the woodland floor in the springtime when the flowers of primrose, bluebell, wood anemone and wood sorrel offer a welcome nectar source to the early emergers of the insect world. But the soil is not the only place where plants are growing in these woods, look at the trees and you will see a bewildering variety of mosses, liverworts and lichens which in places appear to drip from branches and rock faces. It is these plants in particular which make the Sunart oakwoods so special.