Author: Max ColemanPage 10 of 10
Valdivia gayana is a diminutive woody perennial from Chile that could be mistaken for a dandelion when not in flower. In fact, the local Chilean name ‘Planta de…
Holyrood Park is home to a great variety of plants. Among them are some that are relative rarities and these are carefully monitored by the Historic Scotland Ranger…
Apples are a feast for the senses. The variety of size and colour is incredible. Small varieties have fruits little bigger than a golf ball while the aptly…
By domesticating wild plants to create our familiar crops we have selected desirable traits like disease resistance, yield and flavour. The Really Wild Veg project has been examining…
The importance of conserving crop genetic resources, including the species regarded as Crop Wild Relatives (CWRs), is a subject that has featured quite a bit in this blog…
Now that harvest is a major activity in the Demonstration Garden the final crops in the Really Wild Veg project are approaching maturity. This project has been growing…
This year is the 150th birthday of the magnificent avenue of redwoods at Benmore. The story behind how this species reached Britain involves a race to bring back…
The story of dead bumblebees at the Botanics that had apparently been killed by the toxic effect of nectar from silver lime (Tilia tomentosa) http://stories.rbge.org.uk/?p=5319 has taken a new…
On the 21st June a BioBlitz was run at the Edinburgh Garden. Over a 24 hour period as many species as possible were recorded by around 30 expert…
A few weeks ago I was walking through the Edinburgh Garden near the foot of the Chinese Hillside when I was struck by the large number of dead…
‘Really Wild Veg’ is a vegetable growing trial run by the Edible Gardening Project and four other community gardens – Girvan Community Garden, Good for Ewe, Whitmuir Organics…
During the recent BioBlitz mollusc specialist Adrian Sumner discovered an alien snail, Zonitoides arboreus, in the RBGE glasshouses. The diminutive snail, just 5mm across, lives as a wild…
For 24 hours from 6pm on the 21st June experts and the public joined forces to record wild species in the Garden at Inverleith as part of the…
This summer the Edible Gardening Project at the Botanics is working with four community gardens across Scotland to grow three wild plants that have given rise to familiar…
Local bat experts released a Soprano Pipistrelle bat, Pipistrellus pygmaeus, in the Garden on Saturday 11th May. The bat had been discovered by Robert Unwin on 12th April….
During Edinburgh International Science Festival 2013 the Botanics ran an activity trail for the public themed around plant collecting in Malaysia. The trail, called Expedition Botanics, ran for…