From the CO2Science.org archive: Och, laddie, do ye nae miss the heather on the hills such as we hae seen in bonnie auld Scotland? Or our biscuit-tin Scotsman accent? Although you no longer have to travel to the Scottish Highlands to see heather, aka Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull (and we’re liable to get our sporrans in a knot over why it’s not Calluna elegans) since it now also grows throughout Europe, Asia, North America and many other places, where it has been planted as a hardy shrub and a foraging plant for sheep and deer. And apparently it was once used as an ingredient in beer, although that practice mercifully appears to have faded into history. Fortunately heather itself will not be doing so as from 1998 to 2003 nine experiments showed that an extra 300 ppm CO2 in the air boosted its growth by an average of 17.1 percent. So we’ll raise a wee dram to toast the heather, wherever it blooms.