Henry McBeath was from Rogart in Sutherland, born in November 1878 to James McBeath, a farm grieve (foreman) and his wife Johan from Rovie, a farm in Rogart…
When we’re working out a protocol or troubleshooting, we spend a lot of time quantifying small quantities of fluids, looking at DNA concentrations on the DeNovix, running tapes…
We started our lab work on the Polytrichum hybrid baits project on the 1st of October, by normalising some CTAB-extracted DNA with 0.1X TE to 55 µL of…
The current Next Gen Sequencing lab project at the Botanics involves looking at the phylogeny of Polytrichum section Polytrichum, using hybrid capture. Polytrichum commune, photographed by David Bell…
When we made our Begonia libraries, working with (in some cases) relatively small quantities of very degraded DNA, we should have diluted the adaptors. We didn’t. Consequently, we…
This is the season where worm casts appear on the surface of the lawn. If left and walked or worse, mown over, the squashing, flattening action will result…
By Hannah Swan Before publisher’s bindings were de rigueur, texts came in flimsy paper ‘wrappers’, leaving the permanent binding to the new owner. Because of this, many books from…
For one of the taxa in our study set, Begonia scottii (living collection no. 20170076), we made a few replicate DNA extractions using Qiagen DNeasy plant mini-kits, and…
“It’ll stink! Tell me if you can’t stand it. My cat adores it.” Sweaty armpits, musty old rooms, smelly feet were all attempts at describing the smell of…
Inverleith house has produced many wonderful exhibitions. The Lost Words exhibition being a great success with the many visitors that attended. The newest addition to Inverleith house is…
August 2018 was cooler and wetter than July, much more like an average August. The mean maximum temperature was 18.7°C and the month’s highest temperature was 24.6°C on…
Villa Farnese is an interesting example of an Italian styled garden which varies significantly from British ideas of gardening. RBGE has a wide collection of plants, plant labels…
Andrew Ewing Calder was born in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, on the 12th January 1884 to Robert Calder, a blacksmith, and his wife Sarah Jane, who was a tailoress. Calder…
Villa Lante is one of the finest examples of a renaissance garden in Italy. The garden exhibits the aspects we expect from these flamboyant displays of grandeur: geometric,…
Italy is famous for its renaissance gardens. Students are taught in their second and third year of the Edinburgh Botanics plantsmanship course about the beautiful uniformity and strict…
The Bosco Verticale (or ‘vertical forest’) is one of the most innovative designs I have seen. It is an example of modern cutting edge construction with an awareness…
Pests and Disease in Italy The scrutiny of the plant world has recently fallen upon Italy due to a vicious disease which has destroyed many ancient olive groves….