The mission
of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is:
To enable better
management of the Earth's environment by increasing knowledge and
understanding of the plant and fungal kingdoms - the basis of life on
earth.
This mission will be
achieved by:
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developing our
global reference collections and making them more accessible to the
greatest possible variety and number of users;
undertaking
world-wide research into systematics, economic and ethnobotany,
biological interactions, conservation and horticulture;
supporting the
conservation and sustainable use of plant resources in the UK and
overseas;
informing the wider
public about our activities, through the maintenance and development
of world-class Gardens that provide a window into our work;
providing education,
advice and information in various forms to our stakeholders, and
building the global capacity for studying and conserving plant
diversity through collaborative partnerships and by training
scientists from developing countries.
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THE LIVING PLANT
COLLECTION:
The living plant
collection is the largest and most comprehensive in the world, containing
representatives of more than one in eight of all flowering plant species.
Plants are included in the collection primarily for their scientific or
educational value and many of them are actively used in our research
programmes. Tender woody species are mainly grown in the Temperate and
Palm Houses whilst tender herbaceous plants are displayed in the Princess
of Wales Conservatory. The Alpine House contains plants from mountains and
high latitudes. Other herbaceous plants, hardy in the British climate, are
grown in the rock, grass and woodland gardens. Most of the hardy trees and
shrubs in the collection are arranged according to the Bentham and Hooker
scientific classification, although mixed decorative groupings of trees
can be seen at the northern end of the Arboretum. Displays of ornamental
herbaceous plants are featured in front of the Palm House, along the Broad
Walk and in the Queen's and Duke's Gardens.
Many species within the
living collection are endangered in their natural habitats and the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew is increasingly involved in their conservation as
threats to the world's vegetation escalate. Specimens of such plants are
cultivated and propagated for distribution to other botanic gardens or,
whenever possible, return to their natural habitats. Seeds from more than
3,500 plant species are preserved under chilled dry conditions in the seed
bank at Wakehurst Place. These are available for study by other scientists
or for reintroduction into their native habitats.
Our herbarium contains a
reference collection of over 6 million specimens of dried plants and fungi
- the most comprehensive in the world. Botanists use these specimens,
together with material from the living collection, to study plant
characters in order to catalogue the diversity of the plant kingdom. This
process, known as systematics, involves the identification, naming and
classification of different groups of plants from all over the world. Kew
also has one of the world's foremost botanical libraries, containing over
120,000 books as well as journals, papers and illustrations, and an
extensive archive.
Botanists from all over
the world use our collections for studies of specific groups of plants or
research into the plants found in particular areas of the world. The
results of their studies are published as plant resource inventories,
manuals for plant identification and classifications capable of predicting
the distribution of useful properties and evolutionary relationships.
Scientists in the
Jodrell Laboratory study the internal characteristics of plants such as
their structure, biochemistry and genetics. These not only complement the
taxonomic studies carried out in the herbarium but also help to identify
plants of potential economic importance. Among the benefits emerging from
this research are the isolation of plant chemicals of potential value as
drugs and the identification of high-yielding fuel wood trees. The
economic value of plants has been recognized since the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew's earliest days and, over time, a collection of over 72,000
plants and their products has been amassed, now housed in the Sir Joseph
Banks Center for Economic Botany.
The knowledge and
expertise of our scientific and horticultural staff is shared with other
botanists and the public by means of publications, scientific conferences
and educational programmes. Among the programmes for specialists are a
three-year horticultural diploma and a course on herbarium techniques.
Other educational courses cover topics as diverse as landscape design,
botanical illustration and plant photography. Schools education programmes
include training days for teachers and study days for children.
Many of our research
programmes involve collaboration with scientists from a variety of
disciplines and many different countries. One example is Plantas do
Nordeste, where scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and other
institutions, both in Britain and Brazil, are working towards the
sustainable development of natural plant resources in north-east Brazil by
focusing on the biodiversity and economic botany of the region with the
theme "local plants for local people". In projects such as this,
our research has the potential to help solve environmental problems
worldwide.
WEBSITE:
The Royal Botanic
Gardens at Kew
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