Cottongrass

This month’s thoughts come from a set of six images taken one morning when I decided to explore the boggy ground around the head of Loch Moidart at Ardmolich. I had driven by there the night before on my way to Glenuig and my eye was drawn to a large swathe of cottongrass that covered much of what I could see. This fluffy headed plant is a common sight on the Peninsula from around late May and into midsummer. In many places they are dotted here and there, but occasionally they form more substantial stands such as the one I had spotted and when they do, they are well worth photographing.

Cotton Grass I: Ardmolich, Moidart

​Despite its appearance, cottongrass, also known as bog cotton or ghost grass is neither cotton or grass. It is in fact a sedge, which is a group of plants that are closely related to grasses. Three species of cottongrass are likely to be found in Scotland: Hare’s-tail Cottongrass, Common Cottongrass and Broad-leaved Cottongrass. All three love damp, acidic environments so are well at home in the peat filled salt marsh that is at Ardmolich.
 
Hare’s-tail cottongrass has just one ‘cotton’ head at the tip of its stem in the form of a tidy, almost spherical tuft, reminiscent of the tail of a rabbit or hare, hence the name. On the other hand, broad-leaved cottongrass and common cottongrass both have several and more unkempt ‘cotton’ heads drooping from their stems that look a bit like cotton wool that has been pulled apart. Having looked at the plants I was photographing, I decided that they were common cottongrass because of the narrow leaves and stems that they had.
 
I wandered around the salt marsh, carefully making my way around innumerable water pools and across countless tussocks until I found myself in the middle of a sea of white, fluffy seed heads gently swaying in the slight morning breeze. I knelt down to take a closer look at the tufts of ‘cotton’ and found myself with an eye level view across the top of them to the hills at the other end of Loch Moidart. It was from there that I took my first photograph, using a long focal length to compress and emphasise the sea of white that floated before me.

Cotton Grass II: Ardmolich, Moidart

​With the wide perspective shot taken, I focused my time on taking a series of shots that captured the cotton grass in more detail, eventually homing in on a single plant that I was able to isolate from all the others around it by using careful composition and a wide aperture. Coming to the end of doing this, I began to wonder if this fluffy, delicate plant had been used for anything in the past and if it had any folklore associated with it.
 
Unsurprisingly, one of the primary historic uses of cottongrass was as a stuffing material, particularly by rural communities where resources were limited, and every available material was put to good use. I found references to its downy fibres being used as an insulating stuffing for pillows, mattresses, for lining shoes and even as an absorbent pad for infants to use at night instead of a nappy.
 
When it comes to Scottish folklore, one common theme appears to be the association of cottongrass with the faeries. A number of tales describe cottongrass as one of their favourite plants because they used the soft, fluffy tufts to make their beds, while other tales have described patches of cotton grass swaying gently in the wind as the sight of faeries dancing.
 
However, it is in Shetland where the clearest association of cottongrass and mystical beings exists. It is known locally as Lucka Minnie’s Oo, or wool. A witch from Shetland folklore, Lucka Minnie, was said to roam the hills in summer to collect this wool, which she’d process on a card obtained from the faeries and then use it to knit her clothes.
 
When I tried to find out a bit more about her, I came across two conflicting stories. One described her as a fearful ‘trow’ or troll who met her end while chasing after a young boy who she’d intended to eat for her dinner. The other painted her as a rather benevolent character who would guide lost travellers through treacherous boglands by revealing paths marked by distinctive clumps of cottongrass. I guess that if one were to be true, I hope it would be the latter, which I think would be a fitting tale to link with the delicately beautiful tufts that are the seed heads of the cottongrass.