Category: Point of InterestPage 7 of 16

Places of interest around the Gardens

Hidden diversity in unexpected places – moss growth on modern building surfaces

Back in 2014, staff in the molecular lab and herbarium at RBGE greatly enjoyed a three-week visit from Austrian Dr Wolfgang Hofbauer. With funding from the EU SYNTHESYS…

A memory

The specimen of Sorbus microphylla agg fruiting profusely in the copse was collected in the Langtang National Park area of Nepal. This is the area devastated by the…

Battle of Loos, 25th September 1915

In memory of Lance Corporal William F. Bennett (1889-1915), Private Alan Menzies (1894-1915), Lance Corporal John Stewart (1891-1915) and Private George H. Stuart (1891-1915) In August 1914, RBGE…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. IX. Hybrid capture

By mid-May 2015, we had 32 separate Inga umbellifera libraries, 15 generated using the Illumina Tru-Seq Nano library preparation kits, and 17 with the NEBNext Ultra library preparation…

Finding Monocarpus, in the field

Sadly, although not surprisingly, I was not able to amplify the regions of Monocarpus DNA needed to compare it to other complex thalloid liverworts from a 1950s collection that we had…

John Hutton Balfour Excursions

“Excursions may be truly said to be the life of the botanist. They enable him to study the science practically, by the examination of plants in their living state, and…

Biography of John Hutton Balfour

John Hutton Balfour Born: 15 September 1808 Place of Birth: Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh Died: 11 February 1884 Place of Death: Inverleith House, Edinburgh Occupation: Botanist and Teacher The…

Finding Monocarpus, in the herbarium

At the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh we’ve been working on the phylogeny of the complex thalloid liverworts for rather a while now. David Long presented a poster on…

A Gardener at War, by Freda Child

The memorial poppy and wild flower meadow on the glasshouse lawn at RBGE has inspired many visitors to contemplate the bravery and sacrifice of men and women involved…

On Monocarpus

As far as liverworts go, Monocarpus is a rather strange plant. It’s very small, in itself not that unusual for a bryophyte, but rather problematic if you need…

In memory of Sergeant George Cruickshanks Fallow (1890-1915)

George Cruickshanks Fallow was born to Archibald (a grocer and fruit grower) and Margaret (by 1914 a postmistress) in Rosebank near Dalserf, Lanarkshire on the 5th November 1890. …

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. VIII. Amplification

Both the Tru-Seq and NEB libraries were amplified pre-hybrid capture – another step at which modifications were made, according to how much DNA there was in each library….

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. VII. Comparisons.

As previously mentioned, we tested two different kits in our NBAF project. The first is the Illumina Tru-Seq Nano library preparation kit (FC-121-4001), which recommends a starting DNA…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. VI. Size selection

A few days ago, I read a tweet from the Botany2015 meeting in Alberta that described DNA extracted from herbarium specimens as “pre-sheared”. This resonates with our own…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. V. Fragmenting the DNA

The mantra for many years for next generation sequencing has been, like “garbage in, garbage out”, that the optimal starting point is high quality, high molecular weight DNA….

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. IV. DNA

In March this year, having already chosen and obtained the plant material that we were going to use for our NBAF project on using a hybrid bait protocol…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. III. The Samples.

Having chosen Inga umbellifera as the study organism for our NBAF-funded project to test the use of hybrid baits for recovery of DNA sequences from herbarium material, we…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. II. Inga.

About 300 species of Inga (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae: Ingeae) grow in lowland and montane rain forest throughout the humid tropical zone, from Mexico to Uruguay. Most species diversity is…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. I. What it’s all about.

In February this year, Dr Catherine Kidner, Dr Michelle Hart, Dr James Nicholls and I were awarded an NBAF pilot grant by NERC to explore the use of…