Rhododendrons in Bloom at Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh

 We visited the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh yesterday, to see the rhododendrons and Azaleas. They're not all in bloom at the moment, some seem to have finished blooming already and some haven't even budded yet. But there were plenty of lovely flowers to see, here's just a selection of photos we took. 

Some of the azalea bushes are full of mosses and lichens growing on the branches and twigs

As well as the rhododendrons and azaleas, a couple of species of larch trees are also in flower at the moment! Their flowers are a lot less showy, here are the flowers of the Polish Larch

and here are the flowers of the Gmelin Larch (a native of Siberia) - the first of these photos shows the young flower alongside a mature cone.

 

A cherry tree was also in flower

and some of the daffodils are still in bloom

We were also very surprised to find a few earth star fungi growing in the gravel next to the Botanics building, I've never seen these fungi growing in gravel before.