Author: David Harris

David Harris is Herbarium Curator at RBGE.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6801-2484

Big trees need big plots

The largest trees in tropical rain forests are poorly know. A paper just published sheds some light on these amazing giants.

Why it takes 100 years to get to know a plant

At the Botanics we discover new species – it’s one of the things, in addition to growing plants and telling people about them, that we have been doing…

My first taxonomic revision – experiences from the Edinburgh herbarium – by Julia Wellsow

Desplatsia is a genus of small trees growing in the forests of West and Central Africa. Their fruits are rather large and adored by elephants. There was some…

How many people does it take to revise a genus?

In 1994 I was in a forest in the Central African Republic standing in front of a tree. I remember the moment well. I turned to my companion,…

The beautiful bemba forest

In the forests of central Africa there is an amazing species of tree. It is called Gilbertiodendron dewevrei. Fortunately, the people who live there have shorter names for…

Are half the specimens in the herbarium at Edinburgh wrongly named?

Zoë Goodwin, who first arrived at RBGE as an MSc student, became a member of staff, and is now a PhD student (University of Oxford), has just published…