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From a single tree to a BioBlitz
On the 17 and 18 June 2022 naturalists and the public came together at Little Sparta, a garden in the Pentland Hills 25 miles southwest of Edinburgh, to record the garden’s wildlife for the first...
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A small plant with a big genome
The small adder’s-tongue fern has a single leaf not much bigger than your little fingernail. Apart from this easily overlooked leaf, the only other visible part of the plant is a slender fertile frond...
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Wake-up call to climate change
The reality of climate change is that we will lose almost all our large wych elm trees after a long history in the British Isles spanning some 9,000 years. Not because wych elm cannot cope with a...
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Next gen elms
Seeing the next generation doing well gives us hope for the future, and this goes for plants as much as people. This is particularly true when the plants in question are threatened. So it was a...
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One in a thousand
Caught in the process of unfurling its first pair of leaves, this newly germinated wych elm seedling looks delicate. But it is in the vanguard of a new project to reverse the decline of ten threatened...
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Scottish Plant Recovery
This is an exciting time for threatened plant recovery as new opportunities are emerging through ambitious large-scale nature recovery projects Aline Finger, Scottish plant recovery project lead Early...
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Golden jewel
The marsh saxifrage (Saxifraga hirculus) is a golden jewel of our bogs and marshlands. Each small plant bears one or two flowers, bright golden yellow and often dotted with orange markings on the...
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Hedlundia in a spin
Taxonomists – those who classify and name species – are sometimes grumbled about by gardeners because familiar plant names are changed, apparently out of the blue and for no reason. A recent example...
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Restoration in focus
Recovery of threatened plant populations requires attention to a lot of small details and sometimes this includes working with things that are literally small. Flowers can be small. But even larger...
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Pressing conservation issue
It’s the season of mellow fruitfulness and the Scottish Plant Recovery project team has been busy squashing the bright orange/red berries of the Arran whitebeams (Hedlundia species) to extract the...
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On the move
We tend to think of plants as being immobile, literally rooted to the spot. But of course they get about and colonise new sites that meet their needs. That is until they don’t. Threatened plants often...
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Plants moving on
I imagine that releasing a red kite or a golden eagle as part of a species reintroduction programme is a pretty emotional moment. That animal, raised in captivity, is now free and must fend for itself...
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Apple recovery bears fruit
The apple is a symbol of fertility in Norse and Germanic pagan tradition. So, there is some irony in the fact that work by the Scottish Plant Recovery project to restore the crab apple (Malus...
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Resilient plant communities
Diversity is the basis of resilience. But we tend to focus on the number of species or habitats and not the diversity within a single species. This is a problem as species with low genetic diversity...
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Rainforest elm
Awareness that Britain is a rainforest nation is finally growing. Environmental organisations are doing their best to get Britain’s rainforests the recognition they deserve. But one man, Guy...
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Reviving Benmore’s giants
Reviving a stressed 50m tree feels daunting but having 49 ailing giant redwoods to revive has been one of the biggest challenges. Peter baxter, curator, benmore botanic garden Benmore Botanic Garden...
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Planting healthy
…biosecurity has become central to conservation in recent years and the benefits of investing time and resource into producing biosecure plants will pay dividends… Matt Elliot, RBGE plant health &...
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Seedlings of hope
On Thursday 25 January 2024, 43 people gathered at the Little Assynt Tree Nursery, near Lochinver, making a hopeful start to the year by planting elm trees. Elms are important in Assynt as it is one...
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Bird burglar caught in the act
Burglary at the Botanics may sound shocking but every spring there is an outbreak of crime. The burglars go about their business with impunity in broad daylight and thefts are a daily occurrence. The...
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Restoring a fern wiped out by collectors and botanists
Oblong woodsia (Woodsia ilvensis), a small, rare mountain fern, was virtually wiped out in the Moffat Hills by commercial collectors responding to the Victorian craze for ferns – pteridomania – that...
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