Category: SciencePage 1 of 25
Latest science blog posts from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
By Henry Noltie A melancholy arboricultural event took place in the Doune Terrace garden on 26 April 2021: the felling of a stately wych elm (Ulmus glabra). The…
by Frank Horsman A number of botanists have been overlooked in the botanical recognition of Upper Teesdale. My aim is to put this right. The unrecognised botanical pioneer…
I am fortunate to be able to work with archive material produced by people like plant collector George Forrest (1873-1932), who travelled extensively in Yunnan province, southwest China…
A party from RBGE was invited to see the recent restoration work undertaken by Janis Binnie on the plantings in the lower part of Leny Glen, Callander, Perthshire….
In the first of these Botanics Stories we introduced the weaver botanist John Duncan and his friend Charles Black. In this blogpost we give some details about John’s…
The visitor On the 17th of November 1874 an elderly working weaver – ‘compelled in his destitution’ – applied for poor relief in the Aberdeenshire parish of Alford….
By Henry Noltie On my daily constitutional to Wardie Bay the ivy-leaved toadflax, Cymbalaria muralis, is currently making a fine display in the lime mortar of the sandstone…
The largest trees in tropical rain forests are poorly know. A paper just published sheds some light on these amazing giants.
Moray Place is the dodecagonal circus, 325 yards in diameter, which forms the centrepiece of that masterpiece of buildings and gardens designed by James Gillespie (Graham) in the…
Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara L.) is found throughout Scotland. It is among the early spring flowers. Over the years people have used this ‘common’ plant in a number of ways.
By Henry Noltie Rituals to mark the unrolling of the seasons have always seemed important, but never more so than as reference points by which to punctuate the…
By Henry Noltie In April 2017 I visited a memorable exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art at New Haven, CT. It was entitled ‘Enlightened Princesses’ and…
By Henry Noltie & Mark Watson (continued from Part III) Military Men, Society Ladies and the French The Army Officers The violence inflicted upon India by the EIC…
By Henry Noltie & Mark Watson (continued from Part II) Horticulturists and Civil Servants The designation ‘professional’, which, during the twentieth century, increasingly came to be used in…
By Henry Noltie & Mark Watson (continued from Part I) The Surgeons (and a Vet) Perhaps unsurprisingly the second largest number of specimens in the Herbarium came from…
By Henry Noltie & Mark Watson Nathaniel Wallich was one of the most significant superintendents of the Calcutta Botanic Garden (now the AJC Bose Indian Botanic Garden, Howrah),…
This is an extended version of the talk I gave at the ‘Trailblazers’ online event to mark RBGE’s 350th anniversary on the 15th October 2020. I work in…
Born in 1967, the daughter of R.N. Joshi (1938-1988), painter and doyen of Nepali art Personal Statement I am an independent self–employed artist and botanical illustrator in Nepal….
Jimmy Ratter, botanist. Born: February 15, 1934, in Cambridge.Died: November 3, 2020, in Edinburgh. James Alexander Ratter (“Jimmy” or “Jim”), who has died aged 86, was an internationally…
Karissa Adams, a volunteer with the Library and Archives, writes: Jane Webb Loudon was born in 1807 in Birmingham. In 1819, her mother died, prompting her bereft father…