Badges of Clan Farquharson

	PLANT BADGE

		Scots Fir

		Red Whortleberry


	CREST BADGE

		Out of chapeau gules turned ermine
		a demi-lion rampant, gules, holding
		in his dexter paw a sword, proper
		pommelled, or.

The chief wears a crested badge surmounted by three feathers. It was the practise, however, for chiefs to allow their followers to wear the crest and motto in a silver strap-and-buckle badge. This is the clansmen's badge and if you are a member of the clan you may wear it. If the clan lacks a chief, no badge is worn. [ Sir Thomas Innes, in The Scottish Tartans ]

The whole Clan Chattan group -- Mackintosh, Macpherson, MacGillivray, MacQueen, MacBean, Farquharson, and Davidson -- have long borne Red Whortleberry (in Scotland sometimes called `Cranberry') or Bearberry or Boxwood. Now the leaves of these three plants are, for "practical" purposes, indistinguishable, and it is evident that whichever was available was used.

Farquharson, however, uses alternately Pine (and this appears on the uniforms of "The Invercauld Highlanders")> The origin of this is, that in the first stage of the Invercauld arms a Pine tree was used as mark of cadency from the basic Shaw- Mackintosh arms. It is therefore essentially a "district" badge; but shows how such things arise; and how the whole Clan Chattan uses the Box-Whortle- Cranberry plant leaves, but that, within the major clan, branch-clans may have additional sub-badges, drawn, in this case, from the armorial mark of cadency.

The objection to it, per se, is that it would suggest a Clan Alpin connection, and, where a local badge of such character exist, it should obviously be borne along with the badge of the major clan-group.

[From: "Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands." Frank Adams, 1908]

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