Category: Other NewsPage 10 of 51

Stories not categories under anything else

Looking at After Hortus Malabaricus

As a Gallery Volunteer it has been my privilege to spend a good number of hours looking at the diverse range of objects in the artist Siân Bowen’s…

Sibbaldia No. 18 A Plant Health Special

Plants sustain nearly all life on Earth: protecting plants is thus protecting life itself. 2020 has been designated the International Year of Plant Health, and as part of…

January 2020 Garden Wildlife Report

January 2020 was a dull and rather wet month at RBGE. There were only 46.5 hours of sunshine, about twelve hours less than in December 2019, with the…

Siân Bowen’s Leverhulme Research Fellowship Exhibition: After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants

After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants marks the culmination of my four-year collaboration with the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). Having held my first solo exhibition in Scotland at Inverleith House at RBGE in 1995, it is wonderful to be able to exhibit here once again. In 2017, I was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to carry out the project. The Leverhulme Trust is known for supporting experimental proposals with an emphasis on outward facing journeys. The journey that the award facilitated has certainly been extraordinary – opening up possibilities to work with botanists, ecologists, historical researchers, cultural geographers, taxonomists and curators. It has allowed encounters with rare plants in darkened herbaria and light-filled South Indian forests and swamps; epistemologies used to ‘reveal’ specimens and sensory differences between plants’ live and preserved states.

Fields of Plastic?

Inspired by the Think Plastic: Materials and Making exhibition, Fields of Plastic is a display of items from the RBGE Collection in the Herbarium, Library & Archive Cabinet…

Tjipetir – the next chapter…

The Think Plastic- materials and making exhibition which has just opened is a collaboration between artists Lorna Fraser, Carol Sinclair, Fiona Hutchison, Fiona Pilgrim and Carla Edwards and…

IUCN Threatened accessions in the RBGE Living Collection as of 20 Jan 2020 (Staff Conference)

Today in the staff conference Simon was asked the number of threatened plants that the RBGE is growing. This is a dynamic figure as plants at the RBGE…

The East Gate Lodge & the former RCHS Experimental Garden

This elegant house was designed by renowned Scottish architect William Playfair and was completed in 1826 to provide accommodation for the Curator of the Experimental Garden of the…

The simple thalloid liverwort Aneura – a digitized resource at RBGE

The simple thalloid liverwort Aneura has become a flagship genus for DNA barcoding at RBGE. Only a single widespread species, Aneura pinguis, is traditionally recognized in the UK,…

RBGE World War One Service Roll

1914-1919 The Service Roll is different from the Roll of Honour in that it shows the names & a short statement of service of all members of staff…

RBGE’s World War One Roll of Honour

We Will Remember Them Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh Roll of Honour, 1914–1919 At the outbreak of war in August 1914 the appeal for H.M. Forces met with ready…

December 2019 Garden Wildlife Report

December 2019 at RBGE gave the impression of being somewhat dull and wet although the graphs do not bear this out. Total rainfall was 52.4 mm, most of…

To half a million specimen images and beyond!

Today we have reached a new landmark with half a million herbarium specimens imaged and freely available online on our herbarium catalogue.

The Divine Bog-moss, Sphagnum divinum, found but now lost in Scotland

A recently described moss, Sphagnum divinum, the Divine Bog-moss, has been discovered in Britain and Ireland, though the only Scottish site yet found has sadly been lost. Its taxonomic discovery has a long history, starting over 250 years ago with a French explorer in southern South America.

The untold story of an unassuming Berberis

All plants have stories. The Botanics over its 350 years has managed to create many, from intrepid tales of plant hunters to discovering plants new to science. Some…

Halfway House

Works on the Temperate Palmhouse to repair the glazing bars and replace broken glass has reached the halfway point. The North and East elevations have been completed and…

The first ever revision of the tropical tree genus Pterospermum just published!

It is great to see Dr Santhana Krishnan Ganesan’s revision of the genus Pterospermum has just been published in the Edinburgh Journal of Botany [click here]. Ganesan, from…

A particularly exquisite Rhododendron

It will be of no surprise that an attractive plant has been found in this particular genus. One in which has been so highly regarded by the garden,…

November 2019 Garden Wildlife Report

November 2019 was a pretty grim month at RBGE. It was wetter than average, with a total rainfall of 76.6 mm (155% of the long-term average). Most of…

Plant Collecting on Tay Con Linh Mountain, Vietnam

Expedition to Northern Vietnam, October 2019 Participants (UK) Richard Baines: Expedition leader and Curator of Logan Botanic Garden Will Ritchie: Curator of The National Botanic Garden of Wales…