Author: Robyn DrinkwaterPage 3 of 33

International Women’s Day 2017: Kanae Nishii

Kanae is working on aspects of molecular phylogeny and evolutionary development of the family Gesneriaceae. The family shows highly diverse shoot and flower morphologies and teaches us interesting…

International Women’s Day 2017: Hayley Reid

Hayley is 20 years old and has Asperger syndrome. She volunteers in the Glasshouse at RBGE with the group Supporting Positive Paths. It has made a huge difference to Hayley and her…

International Women’s Day 2017: Flavia Pezzini

Flávia is studying the relationship between species of the genus Ceiba in the Neotropics. Ceiba is one of the most conspicuous elements of the highly threatened Seasonally Dry…

International Women’s Day 2017: Elspeth Mackintosh

Elspeth Mackintosh is Senior Horticulturist in the Alpine Department. She is responsible for the running of the area which includes the public display area, an extensive back-up collection…

International Women’s Day 2017: Dr Catherine Kidner

Catherine is a geneticist studying tropical diversity. She uses next generation sequencing to discover the differences between species and the drivers of evolution in trees and herbs. She is…

International Women’s Day 2017: Introduction

To recognise and celebrate International Women’s Day 2017, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is showcasing the work of a small selection of our female colleagues and volunteers –…

Two newly-found moss specimens from Darwin’s Beagle Voyage

Charles Darwin Charles Darwin was born on 12 February 1809 (208 years ago this week), and died on 19 April 1882. Although he studied for a short time…

A collaboration between RBGE and Edinburgh College of Art

On 1st February 2017 an exhibition opens in the Library Foyer at RBGE displaying work which was produced through association between RBGE and Edinburgh College of Art and…

Gifted herbaria and volunteers

The RBGE Herbarium is frequently gifted plant specimens from individual collectors. In recent years we have received material from T. Powell (seaweeds) J.F. Dobremez (flora of Nepal) C….

Ruby Collett

‘I like to plant something every day!’ Ruby Collett was in her eighties when she made this remark to a younger neighbour.  A student probationer gardener at RBGE…

These are a few of our favourite things

David Harris Herbarium Curator My favourite thing in the Herbarium is the labels on the cabinets. They tell us what is in the cabinet and where we are…

Fern Conservation – Celebrating our Science and Horticulture throughout March for International Women’s Day

Protection of the habitat is a perhaps the most effective method of conservation of plant diversity, yet this alone cannot guarantee the survival of some of our most…

Collections Care – Condition Survey

Introduction A rolling condition survey of mounted herbarium specimens was recommended in the 2010 RBGE Synthesys Self-Assessment Collections Care Report. An initial pilot survey was carried out in…

Bertha Chandler – Celebrating our science and horticulture throughout March for International Women’s Day

Bertha Chandler (1885-1961) In 1901 did Andrew Carnegie know, by donating $10 million to create the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, that his legacy would assist…

Herbarium specimens in new National Library exhibition

Two of our herbarium specimens from the 19th Century are in the new exhibition entitled  PLAGUE!  at the National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge.  They make…

Plants from the Woods and Forests of Chile – linking our collections

To tie in with the launch of ‘Plants from the Woods and Forests of Chile’, we wanted to look at some of the material from our herbarium and…

Carex on Herbaria@Home

RBGE has recently started to explore the use of Citizen Science platforms by providing images and data to Herbaria@Home, a long standing and successful platform for transcribing herbarium…

300,000 specimens imaged and online!

Yesterday saw the 300,000th specimen from our herbarium collection imaged and made available on our website. This is a big milestone for the digitisation programme, which has been…

Amorphophallus titanum – Preserving it for posterity

The flowering of our Amorphophallus titanum (titan arum) was a tremendous event with c 19,000 people visiting the Glasshouses to see the plant growing from a small bud…

British Algae online

Here at the RBGE we have just finished digitising our collection of British Rhodophyta (Red Algae), a total of 7850 specimens. Our collection dates from present day right…