Wild Weather

On the 9th January last year I posted a Hellebore that was just breaking through the snow. This year the Hellebores have been out for a while already, probably because of the unseasonably mild weather we have been having.

The wild winds we seem to be having in place of snow have caused a great deal of damage in the Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, blowing in hundreds of glass panes and blowing down 40 trees. The story from the BBC describes some of the old and rare trees that have been destroyed.

One of them, a large oak tree has actually provided some good news. Now that it has fallen down it has meant the topmost branches can be viewed for the first time and are full of a huge variety of lichen, much more than staff were expecting, showing that Edinburgh's air is cleaner than it used to be. At least in the Botanic gardens!

55mm, f2.8