Edinburgh’s Physic Gardens

Modern medicine evolved from medical botany, and physic gardens (gardens for medicinal plants) were living pharmacies, living laboratories and living study collections. They were fertile grounds for innovation and objects of prestige. They produced plants that had the power to heal or kill, potent remedies to be administered by qualified physicians. Ordered and identified by elaborate systems, published, illustrated and circulated, medicinal plants and gardens were the tools and toolboxes of early modern medicine.

Scotland, and especially Edinburgh, was at the forefront of this innovation, and this secret history of Edinburgh can still be unearthed. These Edinburgh places can be unexpected and mysterious. The roots of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the early physic gardens, as well as today’s Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, are firmly intertwined and we invite you to explore these roots in their lesser known shapes and forms.