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On the grass meadow to the west of the new alpine house are a collection of Fritillarias. F. assyriaca ssp. assyriaca is in full bloom, drooping flower head…
One of the John Muir Award challenges is about sharing. This can take many forms including painting, writing, poetry and even just discussing your experiences. Each of the…
What sorts of features provide the best clues about whether or not two plants are closely related? Sometimes it’s obvious – most people can correctly recognise a daffodil…
John Muir seems to have been a prominent feature at the Botanics over the last 6 months or so. During the Autumn and Winter we had the exhibition…
As part of the Edinburgh Living Landscape (ELL), the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is exploring Lichens as Air Quality Indicators. This is a joint project between The Conservation…
LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years…
A recently published nomenclatural paper in the Nordic Journal of Botany looks like a precursor for the tranfer of Pulsatilla (Pasque Flowers) as a genus to a section…
With the help of the brilliant Lothian Buses journey planner I travel by bus today. Surely it’s one of the hottest days of the year so far. …
Regularly hitting moderate levels for pollution, as monitored and recorded by the 91 Air Quality Monitoring Stations that are situated across Edinburgh and the central belt of Scotland,…
Some sites you just have to visit twice. Unexpected hail and snow blizzards when surveying are just part of the course, but add strong winds to that, and…
The Magnolia season is well and truly with us, the weather conditions have been perfect for these magnificent deciduous trees to bloom in profusion and for such an…
This last week we have all been enjoying the Campbell’s Magnolia (Magnolia cambellii ‘Charles Raffill’) that stands next to Inverleith House. It has been spectacular. Our specimen is…
This is the time of year for young growth to exhibit some, not all, of their best characteristics. The young foliage of Anemone x hybrid is pushing through…
The garden is really coming alive despite the cold weather. This Viburnum collected in Japan in 2003 caught my eye and the iPhone 6 camera does a really…
A conversation in the canteen about a 19th wheat specimen from Nepal led on to Henry Noltie asking if I had seen the amazing box of grasses. The…
The drastic decline in the time children spend outdoors is a concern for most parents. A recent survey of 2000 parents commissioned by the Eco Attractions Group (of…
Filling an alpine trough with colour is Primula marginata, a native to the Alps. The rosette of evergreen foliage is toothed around the edges and white farina is…
April is a busy time for the volunteers and community groups that work on the Edible Gardening Project at the Botanics. As the weather improves and the soil…
Born on the 31st March 1853, the son of John Hutton Balfour who was Regius Keeper at RBGE between 1845 and 1879, Isaac Bayley Balfour grew up up in very close contact…