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Stornoway is the only substantial town in the Western Isles, a working port and the administrative centre of Na h-Eileanan Siar, sitting on a sheltered harbour on the east coast of Lewis. The Lews Castle Grounds — an extraordinary planted woodland of sycamore, beech and oak covering over 60 hectares immediately west of the town — were created by Sir James Matheson in the 1840s on what was otherwise treeless moorland, and today they constitute the most significant managed forage environment in the Western Isles. The Lewis moorland stretches to the south and west of the town, carrying heather and gorse; the harbour and town parks contribute amenity clover and wildflowers.

Machair — the distinctive shell-sand grassland of the Atlantic coast — is the most celebrated forage environment of the Western Isles, supporting wild thyme, clover, bird's-foot trefoil, ragged robin and corn marigold in summer on North and South Uist and western Benbecula. White clover and red clover on improved croft grassland provide the main June-to-August flow across all the islands. Heather on the Lewis and Harris moorland — one of the largest continuous heather blankets in Britain — is the defining late-season flow, running from late July through September; bell heather predominates on the drier ground. Sycamore in the Lews Castle grounds and town parks around Stornoway provides a productive May flow in the only sizeable urban forage zone. Gorse is abundant on the roadsides and rough ground of Lewis and Harris from March into June. Bramble flowers on disturbed ground and roadsides throughout the islands from July into September. Ivy on older stone buildings and walls closes the season in October for colonies in more sheltered positions.