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Plants of Interest
16/11/07
Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden has 16,000 plants, around a third of which are Chinese. But the picture changes on a daily basis, so next year staff want to enlist pupils to carry out a survey of these plants.
The event will form part of the China Now festival in Scotland – the UK’s largest ever festival of Chinese culture – and will be launched in May.
Ginger Franklin, spokeswoman for the Botanic Garden, explains that a base camp will be established and pupils, armed with digital cameras, will have to use their orienteering skills to find the plants of interest.
As well as finding the plants, participating pupils will be introduced to a few words of Mandarin and learn about the impact of the boom in herbal remedies on the environment.
“We have been contacted by Chinese botanists concerned by the fact that some plants are disappearing,” said Ms Franklin. “For some remedies, it takes 10kg of a plant to make a single bottle. The problem is that whole areas are being stripped of plants.”
The event will form part of the China Now festival in Scotland – the UK’s largest ever festival of Chinese culture – and will be launched in May.
Ginger Franklin, spokeswoman for the Botanic Garden, explains that a base camp will be established and pupils, armed with digital cameras, will have to use their orienteering skills to find the plants of interest.
As well as finding the plants, participating pupils will be introduced to a few words of Mandarin and learn about the impact of the boom in herbal remedies on the environment.
“We have been contacted by Chinese botanists concerned by the fact that some plants are disappearing,” said Ms Franklin. “For some remedies, it takes 10kg of a plant to make a single bottle. The problem is that whole areas are being stripped of plants.”
