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New Reekie – in the heat of the moment
A small army of staff and volunteers, dubbed the ‘Titan Arum Army’, is sweltering alongside New Reekie to help explain this extraordinary tropical plant to visitors. However, heat is a central part of...
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New Reekie – a toast to the titan arum
Titan arum in flower at the Botanics for the first time. The first flowering in Scotland of the world’s largest “flower” is something to celebrate. So what better tipple than the wine produced by the...
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New Reekie – meet the family
Lords-and-ladies, also known as cuckoo pint, is a common relation of titan arum found growing wild in Scottish woodlands and hedgerows. On Monday 29th June New Reekie is still looking good on the third...
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New Reekie – power plant
New Reekie is still drawing a crowd even though it is now begining to look past its best. Today (30th June) the skirt-like spathe that wraps around the central spadix is closing and begining to shrivel...
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Really Wild Veg – or is it just feral veg?
One of the difficulties with studying the wild ancestors of domesticated food plants is knowing if plants are truely wild? Celery trials growing well at the Botanics with wild plants on the left and a...
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Giant hogweed – know the danger
Giant hogweed on the slopes leading down to the sea at Seafield. A recent case of severe skin burns in a 10 year old caused by exposure to the sap of giant hogweed is a reminder that plants can be a...
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Dawyck BioBlitz 2015
Brown trout electro-fished from the Scrape Burn during the Dawyck Botanic Garden BioBlitz. Over a 24 hour period from 5pm on the 24th July 2015 naturalists and the public joined forces to record as...
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Really Wild Veg – celery trials 2015
Celery seedling sown on 17th March 2015 as part of the Really Wild Veg growing trials. The wet summer may not have been much fun, but our celery has been loving it. One of the real challenges with...
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Botanics bees beat the blues
Honey bee on Aster. During the summer of 2015 the Botanics had a major focus on bees with the Urban bees exhibition in the John Hope Gateway and various pollinator-friendly initiatives in the Garden....
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Oldest yew tree switches sex
Yew berries showing the distinctive fleshy aril that surrounds a single seed. The Fortingall Yew in Perthshire is a tree of international renown as potentially the oldest individual tree in Europe. It...
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Have I Got News for Yew
Male blackbird eating berries of common yew Taxus baccata. 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...
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Really Wild Veg – 2015 roundup
Wild celery seedlings in the poly tunnel at the Botanics in spring 2015. As 2015 draws to a close we end the third growing season for the Really Wild Veg project. The aim of the project is to explore...
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The dodo tree and other stories
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 so called dodo...
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Discovering the Sapotaceae family
Examining Sapotaceae fruits and seeds in the Herbarium with Sapotaceae researcher Peter Wilkie. If anyone had asked me if I knew any plants belonging to the Sapotaceae family eight weeks ago, I would...
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Moth trapping at the Garden: Two new records
MSc student Tom Dawes with one of the moths from the Garden’s new moth traps. Monitoring the wildlife in the Garden is an ongoing task that helps us understand the value of gardens, and other amenity...
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Rare chance to see ant plant blooming for Science Festival
Some of us try our best to discourage ants in the garden. I’m not sure why as they really don’t do any harm. However, in the plant kingdom there are a few species that actively encourage ants to live...
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A most distinctive bee
Male wool carder bee on a favoured leaf from which he defends his territory. The wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum) is one of the most distinctive solitary bees that lives in the Garden. During July...
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BioBlitz record breaker
Pond dipping at Benmore BioBlitz. Counting the wild species in a given area in a set time is the aim of a BioBlitz. Clearly, the biggest list will be produced by involving as many people as possible...
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Moth records from the Garden
Moth trapping in the Garden is now happening on a regular basis with the input of Edinburgh Natural History Society and MSc student Tom Dawes. Records from 29th/30th August: Ypsolopha dentella...
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Let’s Make a Bee Line
Male wool carder bee on a favoured leaf from which he defends his territory. This morning around 11am Meg Beresford set off on her ‘Let’s Make a Bee Line’ walk from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh...
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