About 3,400 rare wintergreens were moved off an eroding Scottish beach

About 3,400 one-flowered wintergreens were dug up at Culbin Sands, near Findhorn, and moved to a safer patch of Culbin Forest. BBC News reported the rescue on November 10, 2026. In the United Kingdom the plant grows only in pine woodlands in north-east Scotland, and more than half of that population has been lost over 50 years. The plants sat on a stretch of beach the sea has eroded. Plantlife Scotland worked with Forestry and Land Scotland, NatureScot, and volunteers.

Sam Jones of Plantlife called the move a way to keep an endangered flower from being lost. The wintergreen often grows where fungi are rich in the soil, and it can take energy from that fungus as well as making food from sunlight. Iain Macdonald of NatureScot said it is not yet known how many plants will survive in the new spot. He said any survival counts as a success, because the old patch was going to fall into the sea. The news is this move of about 3,400 plants. It is not a new census of every wintergreen in Scotland.