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Ever wondered how plants have evolved to defend themselves? If you were a plant how would you stop something eating you? Poison? Spines? Pretending to be something else? …
Looking at the capture plates from the two DNA extraction protocols that were tested on our QIAcube, it was fairly obvious that a lot more plant fragments and…
One of the amazing things about the polymerase chain reaction, PCR, is how little starting DNA is needed, with an exponential increase in the number of copies of…
Having got together two plates of tubes with little bits of plant and lichen tissue in them, and pulverised them with tungsten beads in a TissueLyser for a…
A climbing plant with plentiful tubular red flowers, Jasminum beesianum makes the usual mass of tangled growth expected of these plants with loose scandent growth. Some twisting action…
Enigmatic and isolated although it is, it seems that our Australian colleagues have now “got their eye in” for complex thalloid liverwort Monocarpus sphaerocarpus – after many years…
Each year, for the past four years, leaders from industry, government, the third sector and research have gathered in Stockholm for the EAT Forum to look at global…
This group of Prostranthera cuneate took a battering from our wet and cold conditions during the winter of 2015/16. Much defoliation took place, yet this southern hemisphere native…
In previous Botanics Stories I have written about the joys of Herbarium Angling, but fusty old botanists do occasionally emerge into the glare of daylight and take a…
Enjoyed the Flora of Nepal exhibition? Now discover some of the best of our living collection … Many of the plants commonly grown in UK gardens originally came…
Maianthemum likiangense, a valuable and choice addition to the woodland garden flora. Collected in Yunnan Province where it was growing amongst Quercus scrub at 3700m. A tall member…
In the Herbarium at RBGE, we store a huge number of sheets of archival quality paper with squashed and dried plant specimens stuck to them. These have been…
LearnToEngage is an exciting new suite of professional development modules for botanic garden and museum educators in Italy, Portugal and the UK. The Partner organisations developing and teaching…
A short film on Indian Forester, Scottish Laird and the personalities behind it.
One of the most historically important plants in RBGE is currently in flower in the Woodland Garden, immediately to the west of the old sweet chestnut tree opposite…
The unseasonably dry spring has not subdued the display from the candelabra and farinose Primula species. Primula sikkimensis is a strong growing perennial with a rigid straight stem…
It’s a horrible and unwelcome upheaval to have to change a protocol that works, but that’s the situation in which we have found ourselves with our semi-robotic DNA…
Parahebe perfoliata is flowering profusely; it must be our climate, this mild winter, benign spring weather and the plant also has the benefit of a southerly aspect situated…
May 2017 continued the dry theme of Spring 2017 at Edinburgh. There were a few wetter days, but the ground remains very dry unless watered artificially. The last…