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…

Mercedes Chanek – a hidden Indigenous plant collector from Belize

Surprising is the only word. The list of important female plant collectors from Belize is pretty short. So, when someone emailed out of the blue, about an Indigenous…

Interpreting fungi in the Garden

The Garden’s Visitor Welcome Team is busy deploying a new set of interpretation panels to highlight the seasonal interest that fungi bring to the Garden. The normally overlooked…

Towards 3 million: Iridaceae

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

Daughters of tailors and slop shops: social snobbery and botanical art in early nineteenth-century Madras

I recently acquired two botanical watercolours by Janet Dick (1774–1857) painted in Madras in 1802 and 1803. Competent enough in execution, the main reason for buying them was…

Towards 3 million: Ochnaceae, Medusagynaceae and Quiinaceae

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…

Uber ants

As part of our work on Scottish Plant Recovery we have been bulking up the seed of small cow-wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum) in readiness for translocation back to the…

Towards 3 million: Proteaceae

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

A new species of shrub discovered in the dry Andean valleys of Peru and Ecuador

In the deep, isolated valleys of the Andes there are still many plants that have never been described by science. These valleys are hot and dry, despite the…

Towards 3 million: Lamiaceae

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…

Norwegian niches: oblong woodsia

Niche is a word that has multiple meanings. Someone might have ‘found their niche’ if they have a particularly suitable job, for example. In ecology the word is…

Cow-wheat curiosity: pollination

There’s nothing quite like a mystery for building a sense of curiosity. As part of my preparation for the Scottish Plant Recovery project fieldtrip to Norway in early…

Towards 3 million: Fabulous fungi found in peculiar places

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

Cow-wheat conundrum

One of the plants in the set of ten that make up the Scottish Plant Recovery project – small cow-wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum) – is a particular enigma due…

Meet the Botanics Sniffer in Residence

What is the ‘mushroomy’ scent of heritage? And what do the institutions that care for it — such as the RBGE — smell like? By Siôn Parkinson Dr…

Towards 3 million: Lentibulariaceae

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…

Towards 3 million: Calceolariaceae, Stilbaceae and Paulowniaceae

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…

Are we ready to weather the water?

On Friday 14 June 2024, RBGE experienced 11mm of rain in the span of 8 minutes. To put into context, a typical rainy day (≥ 1mm precipitation, of…

TNLS: from Alphabetti-Spaghetti to order?

We are excited to start a new collaboration between the Botanics (RBGE) and Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). This project forms part of TETTRIs – “Transforming European Taxonomy through…