In a time of habitat destruction and species loss it is vitally important to ensure that fundamental botanical work is being carried out to identify, assess and conserve…
This year’s Connect With Nature Festival at RBGE is all about how people’s lives have become better after they used art to help them connect with the natural…
The Himalayan region is recognised as one of the ‘hottest’ global Biodiversity hotspots, with a third of all plant species within its range occurring in Nepal. This makes…
March 2019 continued the trend of above-average temperatures although it was a much more mixed month than February, with some sharp cold snaps and no exceptionally mild spells….
The RBGE was donated a large and important collection of specimens of Glomeromycota (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) by Dr. Chris Walker. The collection mainly consists of nearly 16,000 scientifically…
Round the corner from the Botanical Women exhibition in the John Hope Gateway is a case featuring the story of the Edinburgh Seven. The Edinburgh Seven – Sophia…
We have recently completed a joint project with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Natural History Museum London (NHM), to digitise important genera in the pea and…
‘Getting started with… Botany’ is an online course that introduces the amazing world of plants. Strictly speaking, it could be described as a beginners’ course, but it’s also…
I am a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and I have been working at RBGE on a three-month internship funded by the Scottish Graduate School for…
Kanae Nishii, Michael Möller, Michelle Hart Introduction Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) (or Second Generation Sequencing) and the plethora of associated applications has revolutionised biodiversity research. The dream of…
We collaborated with Sarah Clarkson from Woolly Originals https://woollyoriginals.com/ who created a design based on our herbarium specimens of Salix lanata. Sarah visited the Herbarium here at RBGE…
February 2019 was the second successive dry, sunny month at RBGE. Rainfall was only 18.4 mm, slightly more than January’s record low of 12.2 mm but only 39%…
The closed, rounded petals of Pieris japonica ‘Snowdrift’ are strewn beneath the plant growing in the F beds. Freshly mulched the contrast between the organic layer and these…
Worsleya is a Brazilian plant in the Amaryllidaceae family, cultivated as an ornamental because of its showy flowers. There is only one known species, Worsleya procera syn. Worsleya…
When conservation scientists are trying to decide which species are most in need of protection, the main consideration is usually how likely they are to become extinct, as…
This unusual plant (Azara microphylla) sounds better placed in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory but I assure you it is real. The specimen can be found to the right…
The way that one plant or a group of plants can completely consume a person into a collecting compulsion has always intrigued me but also bewilders me. Few…
January 2019 was the driest January at RBGE since 1976. Only 12.2 mm of rain fell, 18% of the long-term average. It was also much sunnier than average,…
A covering of seed has appeared on the freshly spread mulch covering the herbaceous border. Cortaderia selloana ‘Pumila’ is shedding seed from the silver plumes it holds through…