CANCELLED — Dr. Axel Dalberg Poulsen — Spicing Up Christmas: Stories of Gingers
Dr. Axel Dalberg Poulsen is a Danish botanist specialised in tropical botany focusing on understorey herbs
Thursday 18 December 2025
Lecture Theatre, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
Date: Thursday 18 December 2025 Edinburgh, from 6:00-7:00pm – (Tea/coffee and biscuits will be available from 5:30 pm as usual — We will also be serving Ginger Tea and other ginger delights!)
Venue: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Science Building, 20a Inverleith Row, EH3 5LR
Venue Note: To access the lecture please enter via the Science Buildings main reception, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR. Note this is NOT the public entrance to the gardens. what3words ///ROPES.DINNER.CLUBS
Title: Spicing Up Christmas: Stories of Gingers
Abstract: Everybody knows stem ginger (Zingiber officinale) that may have been introduced to Britain by the Romans and is especially important at Christmas. Other remarkable spices of the family are cardamom (several species), grains of paradise, and turmeric. Gingers also inspire art and crafts. The ginger family may harbour as many as 2000 species occurring in tropical and subtropical regions, high in the Himalayas, as far north as southern Japan and as far south as Sydney, Australia. Finding out exactly how many species exist is challenging. The flowers essential for identification are short-lived and do not preserve well. Other challenges to the ginger taxonomist are access to collections and the plants in their natural habitat. No doubt new species and spices await to be recognised.
BIO: Axel Dalberg Poulsen is a Danish botanist specialised in tropical botany focusing on understorey herbs. He has 37 years of experience conducting fieldwork-based research in tropical rainforests in South America, Africa, Asia and Western Pacific and an expert on gingers (8 families) focusing on their taxonomy and evolution. He is currently based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, and has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and four books.
