Thanks to a collaborative rescue effort by Rothiemurchus Estate staff, the local Highland Council Roads Department and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), a patch of the little known native plant species toothed wintergreen has been successfully brought back from the brink of catastrophe, following a land slip along the Glenmore road on the Rothiemurchus Estate last week.

Subsidence caused approx 30 metres of roadside verge near the Badaguish entrance to begin to slip down a steep, wooded embankment into the River Luineag.

A passing motorist alerted the Estate, which in turn contacted the Police and Roads Department of The Highland Council on 1 December. The Council decided that immediate, emergency repair was needed, involving the installation of wire mesh baskets filled with rock - called gabions - to shore up the steep slope.

Because the area is protected by Natura 2000 designation, the Estate called in its own forester, Stuart Blackhall and also Keith Duncan, the SNH Area Officer, to carry out a site inspection.

They discovered a colony of toothed wintergreen which was growing in the section where work was scheduled to begin, and this would have buried the wintergreen. So immediate action was needed to rescue these vulnerable plants, and Estate Rangers Lucy Ford and Callum Paterson acted quickly. They identified a nearby site with similar soil and shade, and within three hours they had managed to re-locate the colony of wintergreen along with the layer of soil and moss it was growing in.

Johnnie Grant of Rothiemurchus said: "Toothed wintergreen is a very attractive native plant that is not commonly seen these days, and it would have been a shame to see this colony destroyed by the emergency work. So two of our rangers swung into action, and we're really pleased that the operation appears to have been a success.

It's a great example of partnership working between the Estate, SNH and the Highland Council for the protection of the local environment."

The Rangers will monitor the new site next spring to check that the plants have survived their translocation.