Caledonian Forest

The Caledonian Forest is the name given to the former (ancient old-growth) temperate rainforest of Scotland. The name comes to us from Pliny the Elder who tells us that 30 years after the Roman invasion of Britain their knowledge of it did not extend beyond the neighbourhood of ‘silva caledonia’. He gives no information about where ‘silva caledonia’ was, but the known extent of the Roman occupation suggest that it was north of the Clyde and west of the Tay.