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Kingussie is a Speyside market town in Badenoch, sitting on the River Spey beneath the Monadhliath Mountains to the north and with direct views south toward the Cairngorms plateau. The town was laid out in the late 18th century and developed as a railway and tourist junction; it is now better known for shinty — Kingussie Camanachd Club has won more national shinty titles than any other club in history — and for the Highland Folk Museum at Newtonmore nearby, which preserves reconstructed Highland township buildings. The Spey valley at Kingussie carries one of the most productive upland forage landscapes in Scotland: riverside willows, alder carr and bankside elder sustain colonies through summer; the Insh Marshes RSPB reserve immediately east of the town is the largest inland wetland in Britain and carries a mass flowering of marsh and meadow plants from May through August. The surrounding Cairngorms moorland carries ling heather from late July; sycamore on the older residential streets and the Victorian villas of High Street provides the main town forage.

The season arrives late — gorse and broom on the Moray coast and sycamore in sheltered valleys begin May. Raspberry (cultivated and wild) on Easter Ross gives a substantial early flow. The Highland defining crop is ling heather on the huge moors of the central, eastern and western Highlands — the finest UK heather honey with a distinct red-amber set and jelly texture, still commercially worked. Bell heather, bilberry and upland herbs supplement. Coastal sea-thrift and ivy on lochside cottages close a short, high-quality year.