Tag: ConservationPage 3 of 4
The Scottish Rare Plant Programme is a collaborative project between the Science and Horticulture divisions here at RBGE. Our aim is to identify the ways that we as…
Without the garden and glasshouses there would be no RBGE. The care and curation of the landscape and plants of RBGE is carried out by over 70 horticulturists,…
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…
The Scottish native wild apple (Malus sylvestris), like the Scottish wild cat, could be regarded as being under threat from interbreeding with its domesticated counterpart. In the cat’s…
National Tree Week marks the traditional start of the winter tree planting season. We are celebrating from the 23rd November to the 1st December. “National Tree Week is…
This week (7th-13th October 2019) is Scotland’s Climate Week, which this year comes at a decisive time for our planet, its people and its biodiversity. As UN Secretary-General…
The current, unprecedented scale of fire in the Amazon, the largest area of tropical rainforest in the world, a biodiversity hotspot, and a crucial resource in the fight…
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…
Earlier this month, the RBGE’s Deputy Keeper and Director of Science, Professor Pete Hollingsworth, travelled to China to join an influential meeting at the beautiful Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical…
Spring Break’s a big thing in the US, and spring of 2005, Juan Carlos Villarreal and I spent ours on a road-trip down through Louisianna, looking for the…
Murphy’s threadwort (Telaranea murphyae) has had a singular position in the British flora. The species was described by renowned bryologist Jean Paton in 1965, from plants collected in…
Protection of the habitat is a perhaps the most effective method of conservation of plant diversity, yet this alone cannot guarantee the survival of some of our most…
The Sapotaceae plant family provides us with some wonderful examples of the sometimes intricate interactions plants have with animals. One of the more intriguing cases is that of…
The idea that a story about a male yew tree producing a female branch would go viral and attract massive media attention would have seemed highly unlikely a…
The Fortingall Yew in Perthshire is a tree of international renown as potentially the oldest individual tree in Europe. It has been suggested that it could be as…
In May, Scotland published its first Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme – a set of actions to increase Scotland’s resilience to the impacts of a changing climate. RBGE…
The herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an archive of preserved plants that is also a hive of activity; botanists busying themselves describing new species or…
Valdivia gayana is a diminutive woody perennial from Chile that could be mistaken for a dandelion when not in flower. In fact, the local Chilean name ‘Planta de…
Holyrood Park is home to a great variety of plants. Among them are some that are relative rarities and these are carefully monitored by the Historic Scotland Ranger…
As part of the Scottish Plants Project we are trying to understand the propagation requirements of 170 of Scotlands’s most threatened or vulnerable species. We are well on…