Category: learning

Lichen through the looking glass

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

Orange crustose lichen and green foliose lichen on a fallen tree branch
The array of lichen life on a fallen cedar branch.

I’ve recently started noticing lichen. Now I can’t stop noticing it; it’s everywhere, living on, and in multiple surfaces. Walking around Bristol it’s on the harbour walls, the loch gates, on holiday it’s on the rocks of the cliffs and hanging from trees. Lichen covers around 8% of the planet’s surface area, and so could be argued that it’s one of the most successful collaborations in the natural world.  When you do start noticing, you want to keep noticing, and get in closer with a little hand lens, a looking glass. (more…)

Curator’s live tour 1/7/20

Posted on by andy.winfield

Here is the latest live tour in the Garden which took place on 1st July; Nick discusses pollination including the evolutionary adaptations of flower colour and shape, the native grassland and the importance of knapweed and yellow rattle, and the plants of the Mediterranean Maquis.

We apologise for the low sound quality in this video, but there should be enough to enjoy the tour!

Nature repeating itself

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By Andy Winfield

It was Georgia O’Keefe who said, ‘When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment’. It’s worth doing this, nature is captivating close up; perfectly packaged and clinically efficient, each flower has an adapted shape and look gleaned over hundreds of thousands of years for maximum productivity. This economy of engineering uses patterns and shapes that are repeated again and again throughout the natural world and dotted all around the Botanic Garden. (more…)

Tea, thatch and early spring

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

Crocus appearing in the Garden.

Today as I write this the sun is shining, the birds are in full voice singing, cawing and screeching around the Garden. Bulbs are popping up, crocus are the first with daffodils a week away from carpeting the ground with yellow. Primroses are dotting grassy areas and bees are beginning to forage in the middle of the day; the minimum temperature that a bee can fly is said to be 13 degrees, so when you see one out and about you know the season is changing. (more…)