Kew's Herbarium should stay put

TO describe the Herbarium at Kew Gardens as its beating heart could be seen as ironic—all the plant specimens it contains are as dead as the dodo—but its importance to science and the future of the world’s botanical riches cannot be underestimated.

- Alan Titchmarsh

Seven million dried and pressed or pickled and preserved plants are cared for within its walls, which first gave it a home in 1852. The Herbarium’s website will tell you that: ‘In 1877, the need for greater space, due to botanical exploration of the British Empire, led to the first wing being added. Three further wings were added between 1903 and 1969, with further expansion into the quadrangle in 1989, and a modern wing with climate control was added in 2010.’

About 20,000 specimens are added to the collection every year and some 10,000 are sent out as ‘loan or exchange material’ to scientists around the world. The oldest pieces date from the collection formed as the Petiver Herbarium, founded in India by one Samuel Brown in 1696. The very plants collected in the wild by Capt Cook, Sir Joseph Banks and Charles Darwin sit in their cabinets, pressed, preserved, annotated and described, together with new plant material still making its way to Kew from botanists in remote parts of the globe, where discoveries are still being made.