If there was ever a plant to deter all comers this is it. The leaves of Berberis darwinii are clothed in lethal spines. Anyone who has cultivated around…
Round the corner from the Botanical Women exhibition in the John Hope Gateway is a case featuring the story of the Edinburgh Seven. The Edinburgh Seven – Sophia…
‘Getting started with… Botany’ is an online course that introduces the amazing world of plants. Strictly speaking, it could be described as a beginners’ course, but it’s also…
Fuschia excorticata or Kotukutuku in Māori is a large growing shrub from New Zealand. The specimen is located at the top of the stairs near the monkey puzzles….
I am a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and I have been working at RBGE on a three-month internship funded by the Scottish Graduate School for…
The Scottish Rhododendron Festival runs from the start of April until the end of May and aims to promote the varied collection of Rhododendrons collected and grown throughout…
Observe the thinnest, weak looking stem of this Cleavers seedling Galium aparine. Yet it will have the power to draw water and nutrients from the roots pushing these essential…
On 23rd March 2019 we invited 12 community Gardeners to spend the day with Ben Dell at the Botanics Market Garden. This was an opportunity to learn the…
With the Garden full of spring colour it is good to remember the lesser things that draw the plantings together within the garden. Running through the soil atop…
Research about Victorian botanical illustrator Anne Pratt turns into a Beatrix Potter book binding mystery… Anne Pratt was born in 1806 and, suffering from poor health as a…
The living fossil is a term used to refer to a particular set of very special species. The original term coined by Charles Darwin in The Origin of…
On Friday 15 March 2019, the RBGE Herbarium and Edinburgh Shoreline Project joined forces for a half-day mixed media workshop inspired by algae specimens in the RBGE Herbarium….
Bergenia x schmidtii a hybrid between B. ciliata (Kashmir, Nepal) and its more northerly cousin B. crassifolia from Siberia and Mongolia. A good plant as ground cover on…
Kanae Nishii, Michael Möller, Michelle Hart Introduction Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) (or Second Generation Sequencing) and the plethora of associated applications has revolutionised biodiversity research. The dream of…
We have been collaborating with Sarah Clarkson from Woolly Originals https://woollyoriginals.com/ who will be appearing at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival at the Corn Exchange from 21st to 23rd…
February 2019 was the second successive dry, sunny month at RBGE. Rainfall was only 18.4 mm, slightly more than January’s record low of 12.2 mm but only 39%…
The closed, rounded petals of Pieris japonica ‘Snowdrift’ are strewn beneath the plant growing in the F beds. Freshly mulched the contrast between the organic layer and these…
Worsleya is a Brazilian plant in the Amaryllidaceae family, cultivated as an ornamental because of its showy flowers. There is only one known species, Worsleya procera syn. Worsleya…
The plants of Rhododendron lanigerum originally collected by Kingdon Ward during his travels in south western China are starting to flower. Just as attractive when in tight bud…