Editing Machair (section)

==Etymology==
''Machair'' is a Gaelic word meaning "fertile plain", but the word is now also used in scientific literature to describe the dune grasslands unique to western Scotland and northwest Ireland.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PtIFWx7ZskEC&pg=PA42 |title=The Ecology and Conservation of European Dunes |isbn=9788474059922 |first1=Francisco García |last1=Novo |first2=Robert M. M. |last2=Crawford |first3=Mari Cruz Díaz |last3=Barradas |publisher=Universidad de Sevilla |year=1997 |page=42}}</ref> It had been used by naturalists since 1926, but the term was not adopted by scientists until the 1940s.<ref name=snh>{{cite web |url=http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/B100728.pdf |title=De Tha Machair? Towards a Machair Definition |last=Angus |first=Stewart |publisher=Scottish Natural Heritage |access-date=18 December 2013}}</ref> The word is used in a number of Irish, Scottish and Manx place names to refer to low-lying fertile ground or fields, even in areas where no machair has ever been supported.{{clarify|reason=like “Makertoun” in the borders?|date=April 2023}} <ref name=snh/> In Scotland, some Gaelic speakers use ''machair'' as a general term for the entire dune system, including the dune ridge, while others restrict its use to the extensive flat grasslands inland of the dune ridge.<ref name=snh/> In Ireland, the word has only been used in place names, and the existence of the habitat there has only
recently{{When|date=April 2021}} been confirmed.<ref name=snh/> In Manx Gaelic, 'magher' is a common term for a field.

In 1976, an attempt was made to strictly define ''machair'',<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1080/03746607608685306 |title=The Meaning and Definition of Machair |year=1976 |last1=Ritchie |first1=W. |journal=Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=431–440}}</ref> although a number of systems still evade classification.<ref name=snh/> This proved difficult when the habitat was listed on Annex I of the [[Habitats Directive]] in 1992, leading to the distinction between "machair grassland" and the "machair system".<ref name=snh/>