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Telling Tales Oct 3-5:  Hendrie Park will be CLOSED to visitors October 3 in preparation for Telling Tales, a festival open to the public October 4 and 5. See tellingtales.org for visiting details.

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Botanicult Fiction: The Secret Sounds of Spores

March 10, 2021

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens Header image: Secret Sounds of Spores, Inspace, installation view screen capture. The Secret Sounds of Spores ...

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Botanicult Fiction: “This Plant Eats Bits of Meat!”

February 1, 2021

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens Growing up in the north of England was frequently an austere experience spending my formative ...

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Botanicult Fiction: 2001: A Space Odyssey

January 25, 2021

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens More than fifty years after its premier, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, directed by Stanley Kubrick, written ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Something Wicker This Way Comes

December 15, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens The Wicker Man is a 1973 film directed by Robin Hardy, written by Anthony Shaffer ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Star Trek’s The Infinite Vulcan

December 8, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens Many Star Trek stories have become interconnected since the original series ran in the late ...

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Botanicult Fiction: This Side of Paradise

November 25, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens This Side of Paradise, the 24th episode of the first season of the original Star ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Happening

November 18, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens The Happening is a 2008 film by M. Night Shyamalan starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Tomatoes, are they Fruit, Vegetables, or Murderers?

November 10, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens Since the 1978 release of the movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! it has become ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Will the Real James Bond Reveal Himself

October 8, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. All life on earth depends on Plants. For this reason, I think we can thereforetalk ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Plants in Space, Fact or Fiction?

September 28, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens It might seem like living plants in space is in the realm of science fiction, ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Body Snatchers

September 23, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel written by Jack Finney, originally serialized ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Flowering of the Strange Orchid

September 15, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. The Flowering of the Strange Orchid is a short story by H.G. Wells, first published ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Getting to Know Groot

September 9, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens (with thanks to Tomasz Wiercioch) The Flora colossi are an amazing species. Able to grow ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Wakanda’s Heart-Shaped Herb

September 2, 2020

(In Memoriam, Chadwick Boseman, 29 November 1976 - 28 August 2020) By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens. Traditional societies are often ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Doctor Who The Seeds of Death

August 25, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. H.G. Wells’ War of the World’s is the story that probably first springs to mind ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Day of the Triffids

August 17, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens. Many people encountered science fiction for the first time in high school when assigned John ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Ash Tree

August 12, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. In recent years we have become familiar with the decline of ash trees thanks to the ...

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Botanicult Fiction: E.T.(B.): The Extra-Terrestrial (Botanist)

August 6, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens. In a California forest not far from Los Angeles, a gentle hand comes down to ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Maneater of Hydra

July 27, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. Have the restrictions for COVID-19 left you feeling bored, frustrated and in need of new ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Dyson Tree – Spreading Leaf on a Comet

July 22, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens. In early 2020 the world lost Dr. Freeman Dyson (15 December 1923 - 28 February ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Botany and the Werewolfery Connection

July 13, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Living Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. Werewolf of London is a 1935 horror film produced by Universal Studios as part of ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Freeman Lowell, Space Gardener

July 8, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens. In the third decade of the 21st century we’re used to epic science fiction films ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Creepshow and the Danger of Space Weed

June 30, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens. Creepshow is a classic 1982 horror film written by Stephen King and produced by George A. ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Man-eating Tree of Madagascar

June 23, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens. If you had been an avid reader of newspapers in the later part of the ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Doctor Who and the Seeds of Doom

June 15, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens Doctor who and the seeds of Doom, written by Robert Banks Stewart, was the final story ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Nero Wolfe and An Obsession for Orchids

June 8, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens Somewhat obsessive, meticulous detectives have been favourite characters in fiction since 1887 when Arthur Conan ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Thing From Another World

June 1, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens The classical era of science fiction films began long before 1977’s Star Wars. Several wonderful ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster for a Weekend Treat

May 25, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams follows the adventures of Arthur Dent who ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Arboretum Aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise

May 20, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens Star Trek hardly needs an introduction. It began over 50 years ago with the TV ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Horticultural Horror (The Rose Garden by M.R. James)

May 13, 2020

By Alex Henderson, Curator of Collections, Royal Botanical Gardens Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a prolific mediævalist scholar and Provost of King’s College Cambridge (1905-1918) ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Red Weed from Mars

May 5, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science, Royal Botanical Gardens British author H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a prolific and imaginative contributor to classic science ...

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Botanicult Fiction: Mutant Island

April 27, 2020

By Tomasz Wiercioch, Coordinator, Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark System Len Wein, Marvel Comics, 1975 A small island in the Pacific is exposed to radiation by ...

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Botanicult Fiction: The Flora of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth

April 22, 2020

By Dr. David Galbraith, Head of Science at Royal Botanical Gardens It’s hard to imagine a landscape without plants: they’re nearly everywhere on earth. Plants ...

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Botanicult Fiction: James Bond and the Orchid Connection

April 6, 2020

Are you a fan of martini’s shaken not stirred, James Bond and also like orchids? If so the book for you during self isolation might ...

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