Stories from the Biomes: Return of the Giants

Over the summer of 2024, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh welcomed the return of one of the plant world’s most spectacular plants: the giant Victoria water lilies, specifically…

Molecular biology and the internet have had no effect on the rate of plant species discovery

The title is somewhat clickbaity but probably correct. Working on the World Flora Online Plant List means we are continuously processing and reprocessing a list of all known…

Postcard from the Biomes: A Blank Slate

Explore more Botanic Stories covering the Ferns and Fossils Glasshouse decant below. Stories from the Biomes: Fern House decant begins – Botanics Stories Stories from the Biomes: The…

Elm in its place

A story that is told in pictures alone is somehow very satisfying. Nobody needs to be a wordsmith to get the message across. When Chris Puddephatt sent me…

Translocating resilience

Assisting the migration of plants is something that has already been carried out in a limited way to help them respond to climate change. The concern is that…

Towards 3 Million: Hypericaceae

The following blog was written by Linde Hess a digitiser in the Herbarium. Since 2021 we have increased our digitisation capacity with the goal of getting to 1…

Homonym means “different name” NOT “same name”

This is the third post in a series about the Taxon Name Linking Service project. My last post was titled “Why Latin names just aren’t good enough anymore“….

The Indian botanical work of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812–1881)

H.J. Noltie Introduction Michael Pakenham Edgeworth came from a cultured and distinguished Irish family. The the last of 22 children of the polyphiloprogenitive Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) by…

Towards 3 million: Orobanchaceae

The following blog was written by Rebecca Camfield a digitiser in the Herbarium. Since 2021 we have increased our digitisation capacity with the goal of getting to 1…

William Somervell Mitchell, East India Company surgeon, and briefly Madras Naturalist

Born Lamington, 2 May 1780; died Madras, 24 November 1819 When discussing the collectors of the ‘Wallich’ Herbarium, William Somervell Mitchell was not included as his collections were…

Towards 3 million: Acanthaceae

The following blog was written by Rebecca Camfield a digitiser in the Herbarium. Since 2021 we have increased our digitisation capacity with the goal of getting to 1…

Granny and her visitors – a specimen with ‘cult following’

There is a box in the RBGE Archives marked ‘Granny’ which usually begs the question of what’s inside? The following blog, researched and written by RBGE Garden Guide…

Worst-ever fire season shows the urgency of training in plant identification skills

Orange sunlight filtered through the pall of smoke from nearby fires and leaves of the Guanacaste tree as students examined the tree in front of them. It might…

Why Latin names just aren’t good enough anymore

This is the second post in a series about the Taxon Name Linking Service project. The process of combining biodiversity data from multiple sources currently starts with matching…

Hunting the ghostwort – a bryological Halloween tale

Aneura mirabilis, aka the ghostwort, is a very strange liverwort indeed. And it’s not as if liverworts in general have a reputation for being the most “vanilla” of…

Towards 3 million: Linaceae

The following blog was written by Linde Hess a digitiser in the Herbarium. Since 2021 we have increased our digitisation capacity with the goal of getting to 1…

A Not So Silent Archive

by Dr Amanda Thomson I was sitting in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Library, looking through F.R. Irvine’s archive boxes. Irvine was a botanist who was born in…

Towards 3 million: Schlegeliaceae, Martyniaceae, Byblidaceae & Stemonuraceae

The following blog was written by Rebecca Camfield a digitiser in the Herbarium. Since 2021 we have increased our digitisation capacity with the goal of getting to 1…

Scottish Plant Recovery updates

Monthly updates on the progress being made to restore the fortunes of some Scotland’s most threatened plants are now available online. The updates, produced by the Garden’s Scottish…

No more sow-thistle blues

During summer 2024 a small group of staff from the Garden’s Scottish Plant Recovery team, NatureScot and National Trust for Scotland achieved something which would have been unimaginable…