The word ‘rainforest’ is usually paired with ‘tropical’, not an adjective often applied to the Hebridean island of Eigg. The woodland which fills this small valley on the island’s east coast is a rare remnant of coastal temperate rainforest, also known in Scotland as Atlantic woodland or Celtic rainforest. As NatureScot, Scotland’s Nature Agency explains:

High levels of rainfall and relatively mild, year-round temperatures provide just the right conditions for some of the world’s rarest bryophytes and lichens. 

What this means to the casual visitor is that the woodland is overwhelmingly green.  It’s not just the canopies of the oak, hazel, beech and pine trees which are green, tree trunks and branches, fallen logs and stream side boulders are green too, softly upholstered by mosses, ferns, lichens and liverworts.

 

(Click on any image to view the gallery).

These photos were taken on a mild, damp day.  Outside the wood, light rain was falling but under the shelter of the trees the drizzle turned to a fine mist.