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Inveraray is the historic seat of the Dukes of Argyll, a planned Georgian town on the western shore of Loch Fyne, rebuilt in the eighteenth century by the Third Duke. The white-painted buildings of the planned town face the loch from a formal quay, and Inveraray Castle stands in extensive designed parkland with lime avenues, rhododendron policies and mixed broadleaf woodland. The Aray river flows south through Inveraray from Glen Aray, and the riverside carries ash, alder and sycamore. The surrounding hills carry heather moorland and conifer forestry that shelters the town from Atlantic weather.

Heather is the defining flow of Argyll — Calluna vulgaris covers the hills, glens and island moors from late July into September, offering one of the longest heather seasons in Scotland. Gorse and broom flower in two flushes — April and again in late summer — on every rocky coastal headland and glen-side. Sycamore is the principal woodland forage tree, prolific in the sheltered sea-loch valleys and estate policies from late April. Bramble is abundant on the lower ground and forest clearings from July. White clover grows on the improved coastal grassland of the Kintyre plain, the Isle of Bute and the Oban hinterland. Cross-leaved heath in the wetter blanket bogs supplements the main heather flow on the islands.