Apologies for the long break – the few months of the year has been particularly busy as always, and I wasn’t able to get out much!

A set of photos from a weekend with friends in Edinburgh:

EdinburghCastle

Proof that I was in Edinburgh – the distinctive sight of Edinburgh Castle strategically sited on the volcanic basalt plug of Castle Rock.

EdinburghBotanics

Pictures from the Edinburgh botanic gardens. Although we’d visited “the Botanics” several times in the past, this was the first time it had been both sunny and I had a charged camera battery…

EdinburghRhodedendron2
EdinburghRhodedendron

Admiring the rhodedendrons.

EdinburghBridges
EdinburghBridge

L-R: Duncan, Callum, Murdo, Alan.

EdinburghTree

The glasshouse is just visible in the background on the left.

EdinburghSilverBirchEdinburghBirchBark

A nice pair of birch trees: a silver birch and a close of the bark showing the distinctive horizontal lenticels.

EdinburghSequoiaApproachEdinburghSequoias

Although not on the same scale at the California sequoias, this group of sequoias is still impressive.

EdinburghBlossom

EdinburghPolypore

The creamy underside means that this is probably bjerkandera fumosa (“smoky polypore”) rather than the more common bjerkandera adusta (“grey polypore”).

Edinburgh Spring 2009