Category: SciencePage 26 of 36

Latest science blog posts from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Main Research Providers Inter-Institutional Post Graduate Research Competition

Scottish Government’s Main Research Providers Inter-Institutional Post Graduate Research Competition And Dr Sandra Knapp’s Science For Life Lecture “Bringing the ends of the plant science circle together for…

10th International Flora Malesiana Symposium

Last week the RBGE hosted the 10th International Flora Malesiana Symposium. This brought together over 170 taxonomists, horticulturists and conservationists from around the world. Over the 5 days…

A rapid phylogeny of Marchantia, from the RBGE collections. I. Sampling

Not long ago, the only non-crop plant that the mainstream scientific community seemed to be aware of was the brassica Arabidopsis thaliana – easily cultivated, with a short…

Schistidium caps an old wooden fence

Recently in Kufstein, the home of Austrian bryologist Wolfgang Hofbauer, the demolition of an attractive old building and clearing of trees and other plants from the land, leaving…

A Cleghorn tree trail at RBGE

Walking home though the garden recently, after a hard day in the herbarium, my eye alighted on a small tree that I must have passed many thousands of…

Cleghorn drawings to feature in a forthcoming exhibition

On 23 July a show entitled ‘I still believe in miracles’ will open in Inverleith House. It is a retrospective of the exhibitions of contemporary art, and of…

From Borneo to the Botanics: When the expedition ends, what happens to a botanist’s collection?

This Blog post was written by Olivia Nippe, a PhD intern who spent three months working in the RBGE Herbarium: The RBGE herbarium contains over 3 million pressed…

Meeting the Prime Minister of Nepal

Whilst visiting Nepal in late June, Mark Watson met the Rt. Hon’ble Prime Minister of Nepal, Khadga Prasad Oli, at his Residence in Baluwatar, Kathmandu. Mark was joined…

Impressions of a workshop: New model systems for early land plant evolution, 22 – 24 June 2016, Vienna, Austria

A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days in Vienna, my first visit in 11 years, when I was last over for the 2005 XVII International…

Scrophularia landroveri – botanical whimsy

Botanical names have a tendency to be utilitarian, geographical or commemorative, but very rarely are they whimsical. In 1964 however, Per Wendelbo described a new species of Scrophularia,…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. XI. Some metagenomics of a herbarium specimen

As part of our hybrid capture project, we sampled from an Inga umbellifera specimen that was collected about 180 years ago, by Andrew Mathews, in Peru in 1835….

Franklin Arctic Canadian Collections at RBGE – Part 2

Nordic ‘alimentation noire’: a culinary experiment, RBGE Canteen, 29 June 2016 (a continuation of Franklin Arctic Canadian Collections at RBGE – Part 1). What did the ‘tripe de…

Franklin Arctic Canadian Collections at RBGE – Part 1

The story and fate of the fourth of Sir John Franklin’s expeditions in search of the North-West Passage, on the ships Erebus and Terror in 1845–8, is well…

John Anthony’s photo album – commemorating the Battle of the Somme

The Battle of the Somme commenced at 7:30am on the 1st July 1916, an offensive lasting for 141 days of blood, mud and horror. The first day stands…

The complex thalloid liverwort Aitchisoniella, and its place in the tree of life

The genus Aitchisoniella contains a single species, A. himalayensis, which was described by Pakistani botanist Professor Shiv Ram Kashyap from plants that he collected in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India…

Capturing Genes from Herbaria. X. An update.

Last May (the 15th, to be precise), we sent three eppendorf tubes containing Illumina Tru-Seq and NEB-Next libraries constructed from Inga DNAs, most of which had been extracted…

RBGE to Host International Scientific Conference

Next month the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh will host the 10th International Flora Malesiana Symposium (11-15th July). This will bring together Taxonomists, Horticulturists and Conservationist to discuss the…

Let us know how it went! Feedback on Lichens Air Pollution Survey

Congratulations on completing your Lichens – Making the Invisible Visible Air Pollution Survey We hope you enjoyed the experience and that through exploring your local area in new…

In plain sight – the mosses that grow on British walls

Plant diversity does not have to be far-flung and exotic to be worth studying; even within Scotland, there are unanswered questions about plant distributions. Growing in our towns and…

Thailand – Flora and Craft

We are currently hosting an exhibition ‘New for Old’ which presents the outcomes of craft exchange and collaboration between eight Thai craft makers, and four Scottish craft makers…