Saturday 3 August 2013

Palms and Birds

We went to Edinburgh Botanic Gardens today. To get there we walked through Inverleith Park, where we found outselves surrounded by low flying house martins and sand martins, a lovely experience! The sand martins were quite unexpected here, as they are birds very closely connected with water and though there are ponds and the Water of Leith not far from where we saw them, they seem to have strayed quite far from the actual water!

There's an excellent exhibition on at the Botanics at the moment. The World of Palms looks at the biology, ecology and cultural significance of palm trees. Lots of artifacts are on display, including a large Malawian mat, very similar to several I had in my house when I lived over there! The exhibition also explores the negative ecological and social impacts of oil palm plantations.

This is a touring exhibition from the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the information boards are all in German as well as English.

Alongside this is a small and informative exhibition about ash dieback, the killer diesease that currently threatens ash trees in the UK.it includes clear photos on how to recognise the signs of this disease so that the general public can hopefully help to prevent its spread.

The World of Palms is on until 20 October.  

Moving Forward from Ash Dieback is on until 31 August. 

Both in the John Hope Gateway of the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.


7 comments:

Little Miss Titch said...

That sounds a lovely place to go!xx

sage said...

I remember the Kew (spelling?) gardens in London and their vast displays of tropical plants--it was a nice afternoon.

Caroline Gill said...

I have yet to see a 2013 Sand Martin, though there has been a white one at Minsmere this season.

Ms Sparrow said...

I wonder if the ash dieback disease is different from the emerald ash borer that's killing our ash trees.
What had Mother Nature got against ash trees?

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Oh I remember the Botanic Gardens in Edimburgh. It's where I should be...the heatwave here in Venice and Italy is strong and hard to bear ( even if it produces lucky poems...)

RG said...

Sounds like a great visit!

Bill said...

water birds
far from the water . . .
when will I see you?