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Stories not categories under anything else

The Goodsir letters in RBGE archives’ John Hutton Balfour correspondence collection

by Michael T. Tracy Housed in the archives of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is the collection of John Hutton Balfour papers which include numerous correspondences of…

When is a Nepalese pine not a Nepalese pine?

At the Natural History Museum I’ve recently catalogued a collection of 314 botanical watercolours made at the Saharunpur Botanic Garden in northern India between 1843 and 1866 for…

Stories from the Biomes: A Year in Photos

A lot can happen in a year, especially where the Biomes Project is concerned. Looking back at 2022, it is impossible to include everything that has been achieved, but here is a selection of highlights of the work undertaken by the Horticulture team and colleagues.

A Snowdrop Tour with a Difference – Galanthus nivalis poculiformis

One of the highlights for the Garden Guides early in the flowering year is to take a group of visitors on a Snowdrop Tour.   Early signs of Spring…

COP15: a ‘Paris moment’ for nature

This week saw the conclusion of arguably the most significant meeting for biodiversity since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Read our take on COP15 in Montreal, what…

Tony Schilling, horticulturist, receives recognition from the Government of Nepal – Updated

The following post was first published in July 2019. It has been updated on receipt of the sad news of Tony Schilling’s death on 23 November 2022. Dr…

Professor Rod Page, University of Glasgow

Making biodiversity data accessible and discoverable. With a background in taxonomy, phylogenetics, and biodiversity informatics, Professor Rod Page’s current work focuses on making biodiversity information accessible and discoverable….

Dr Deborah Long, Scottish Environment LINK

Bringing history to bear on contemporary problems. Dr Deborah Long makes connections between specialists and policy makers, prehistoric landscapes and today’s policy. “I bring the long eye of…

Stories from the Biomes: Threatened Chilean plants on the move.

Tucked away behind the glasshouses of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a terrace that contains an exceptional collection of Chilean plants collected by RBGE staff and Chilean…

Stories from the Biomes: Moving the Ericaceous Collection

While the Edinburgh Biomes Project involves the more noticeable decanting of both Victorian Palm Houses and the Front Range Glasshouses, there are several research collections going through an equally significant change behind the scenes.

Stumperies and Rooteries

Rebecca Cross | BSc Horticulture with Plantsmanship | October 2022 History of stumperies The stumpery became known as a garden feature in the Victorian era. Though its origins…

International Open Access Week

This week is international open access week #OAweek and celebrates research outputs that are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. The theme this year is…

Wake-up call to climate change

The reality of climate change is that we will lose almost all our large wych elm trees after a long history in the British Isles spanning some 9,000…

Stories from the Biomes: A Change in the Weather

Every day for the last thirty years, rain or shine, Senior Horticulturist Bruce Robertson has climbed up on to the roof of the Temperate Palm House to change the Campbell-Stokes recorder’s sunshine card. As the restoration on the Victorian Palm Houses begins, the recorder’s solid crystal ball is stored away for safe keeping.

Stories from the Biomes: moving the outdoor plants

From the beginning of the Biomes project the outdoor horticulture team have been hard at work preparing and moving plants to facilitate the work on the Glasshouses. New…

Ian Hedge

18 August 1928 – 7 August 2022 Ian Charleson Hedge, who passed away peacefully last month at the age of 93, was an exceptional botanist and long-time lynchpin…

Stories from the Biomes: Space for Change

Since the start of the Edinburgh Biomes project there has been an almost constant movement of plants within and between the various glasshouses, and part of this involves changing the glasshouses themselves to create the best conditions for each collection.

A small plant with a big genome

The small adder’s-tongue fern has a single leaf not much bigger than your little fingernail. Apart from this easily overlooked leaf, the only other visible part of the…

After the flood; an update from the RBGE Archives one year on.

On the 4th of July 2021, water ingress from a burst drainpipe above the reception of our Science building on Inverleith Row made its way into the RBGE…

Stories from the Biomes: Fern House decant begins

So far, the iconic Temperate Palm House and the Tropical Palm House have been emptied of plants and are ready for refurbishment work to begin. The plants that…