Search results: "stories from the biomes "Page 7 of 26
:Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus), 23 January 2020. Photo Ken Dobson. January 2020 was a dull and rather wet month at RBGE. There were only 46.5 hours of sunshine, about twelve…
…the recorded, spoken word of botanist Shawn Lum. Students then based stop-motion animations on these recordings to illustrate the stories and issues. They were supervised the artist Lucy Davis (lecturer…
The Bosco Verticale (or ‘vertical forest’) is one of the most innovative designs I have seen. It is an example of modern cutting edge construction with an awareness of environmental…
Considering the cold weather that has characterised early April the new foliage on Primula sieboldii ‘Fantasy’ has emerged with its usual fresh appearance. The foliage has a deeply cut edge…
A recent molecular project looking at species boundaries between two British Grimmia species, Grimmia donniana and Grimmia arenaria, with Dr Des Callaghan reminded me that there were still some unedited…
A fine sight, walking past the rock garden and looking up at the rock mounds populated with the spreading Lilium lankongense. The spread through the area is via long runners….
This year for the first time, the herbarium team ran Frankenstein’s Plants, an event for the Edinburgh Science Festival. Participants were able to build their very own unique herbarium specimen…
Goosander (Mergus serrator), 7 March 2019. Photo Ken Dobson. March 2019 continued the trend of above-average temperatures although it was a much more mixed month than February, with some sharp…
Prinsepia utilis 20051436 Walking along the path at the foot of the Chinese Hillside last week I noticed that recent clearing has exposed some interesting plants from among the…
There’s a first time for everything and last week the RBGE herbarium digitisation team hosted its first WeDigBio onsite transcription event! Worldwide Engagement for Digitising Biocollections, WeDigBio, is an annual…
William Munro Scattered throughout the herbarium cabinets of Gramineae at Edinburgh are many sheets from the herbarium of the distinguished soldier and agrostologist William Munro, bearing a printed label ‘from…
Cirsium purpuratum A second sowing of seed last year has given us good plants of Cirsium purpuratum. This seed was collected in 2013 on the Edinburgh Iconic Kew Japan Expedition…
Harvestman Paroligolephus agrestis, 19 December 2018. Photo Robert Mill. December 2018 at RBGE was much drier than usual, slightly sunnier, and milder than average although there were some short cold…
RBGE is a partner in an ambitious initiative to create a Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) as a new European Research Infrastructure. This currently includes 115 organisations from 21…
Quality and quantity of DNA recovered from stored plant material is becoming more important as DNA sequencing technologies change from the relatively simple Sanger sequencing, to next generation sequencing (NGS)…
Gray’s Leaf Insect (Phyllium bioculatum). One of these was reared at the Garden in 1854 and was a major visitor attraction for 18 months. Photo: Wikipedia. Recently I was fortunate…
The definite article is important: the feature referred to, part of a gigantic designed landscape at the gateway to the Scottish Highlands, is romantic rather than peculiar. The epithet is,…
The Gentians are flowering, the first apples have fallen and beneath the mass of foliage Nasturtium seed pods are to be found. All coinciding with the end of the Edinburgh…
Nature writing can begin with a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world. We have brought together a diverse group of writers for our first Botanics nature writing festival…
Scotland has a global reputation for potato research, and as a producer of quality, disease free, seed potatoes used by farmers. Many people would think that the tattie is a…