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Looking for Prumnopitys andina in gardens around the world

Martin Gardner (@RBGE_ICCP ) is looking for cultivated trees of the threatened Chilean Plum Yew – Prumnopitys andina  If you are growing Prumnopitys andina or know of it growing in cultivation…

A violet for Walt

The Shawnee National Forest skirts the midwestern town of Carbondale, which is home to one of the campuses of Southern Illinois University. It’s also one of the prettiest…

The Lost Words Recovered

Call me an incurable romantic if you must but I find it hard to accept that words of my childhood, and indeed my children’s childhood, words like conker,…

A visit to the Californian type locality for the hornwort Phaeoceros proskaueri

One of North America’s endemic hornworts, Phaeoceros proskaueri Stotler, Crand.-Stotl. & W.T.Doyle [also known as Paraphymatoceros proskaueri (Stotler, Crand.-Stotl. & W.T.Doyle) J.C.Villarreal & Cargill] was described from plants collected in the Monterey Bay…

The Huricane of 1968

January the 15th 2018 is the 50th anniversary of The 1968 Hurricane. A deadly storm that moved through the central belt of Scotland. At the time it was the worst gale in…

A propensity to propagate

Cover, undergrowth, shrubbery; all terms for a mass of woody growth that provides shelter to biodiversity. Flowers, foliage and fruit through the seasons add to the interest of…

An expedition to Perthshire to rescue the rare and endangered Polygonatum verticillatum

Polygonatum verticillatum (also known as Whorled Solomon’s Seal) is a rare and endangered perennial plant of steep sided wooded gorges; now only found at nine locations in the…

December 2017 Garden Wildlife Report

December 2017 was a mixture in terms of weather, with several cold snaps and frosty mornings, as well as some milder spells. Total rainfall was just over 49…

Public lecture: The greening of the Arctic

Thursday 18th January sees the Botanical Society of Scotland lecture – The greening of the Arctic with Dr Isla Myers-Smith, University of Edinburgh. Isla Myers-Smith is a global change…

Project Soothe Exhibition Report

We have finished pulling together the results from the Project Soothe Exhibition that we held here at RBGE in September and October last year. If you are one…

Overnight Freeze

The overnight freeze left a myriad of ice crystals covering the garden this morning. The coldest day yet this year at -3.1 °C. These during and after images of…

Plant destroyers in action

Visitors to the gardens will be familiar with the foot baths at all entrances. These foot baths are just one of the measures we take to protect our…

Complex thalloid Asterella lateralis from Panama’s Volcano

During a family holiday to Santiago, Panama in June/July 2011, we snuck in a short bryologising trip, first heading west along the Pan-American Highway, then north, to the…

Snowbird, Utah – Marchantia (Preissia) quadrata from the Rockies

The Botany 2004 meeting was in Snowbird, Utah – a chance to see a different part of the United States (and, of course, to present our research to…

Gyrothyra underwoodiana from Vancouver Island

In April 2004, I flew north from Illinois to met up with a botanical friend, Dr Zoe Badcock. Our meeting point was Vancouver, British Columbia; from there we…

The plants of our lives

There’s something quite melancholy about going back through all the little paper packets of voucher specimens, remembering who and where you were when you collected them, and thinking…

Bryological holiday jobs

The Science building at the Botanics closes down between Christmas and New Year, so any last bits of work for the year have to be packed up and…

Review of the year 2017

January 1st 2017 arrived with a light overnight frost and bright sunshine. The mild weather continued and with it the fragrance from the open flowers of Sarcococca, Hamamelis and Viburnum…

Tree rings, a log of the trees life

The Arboretum team recently had to take down a group of 5 Scots Pine trees behind the Schools Education Building in the Garden. The Schools Education Building also known as…

Bright berries

A light, open growing deciduous shrubby Honeysuckle, Lonicera deflexicalyx bears its fruit in pairs at the leaf axles or nodes, along the stem. These small berries are a…