Like other gourds, the snake gourd is a member of the pumpkin family (Cucurbitaceae) and has seeds similar to its cousin the water melon (Citrullus lanatus), although slightly more eccentric, sporting ...

Plantasia, Kew’s summer festival celebrating the positive effects of plants, is underway. Researcher Olwen Grace highlights investigations in the Jodrell Laboratory on Aloe vera, one of the most ...

William Milliken, Head of Kew's Tropical America team, examines the importance of Kew's collection of over seven million herbarium specimens, and how this resource is being used to tackle the global ...

A letter in the Directors' Correspondence archive describes how the deadly prediction of an old Chinese proverb about bamboo flowering came true. "When the bamboo flowers, famine, death and ...

The Directors' Correspondence Team reveals the artistic talents of an amateur orchid enthusiast in Burma at the end of the 19th century. The Directors' Correspondence team really enjoyed the recent ...

Global species assessments, in which every extant species in a taxonomic group is systematically assessed, have been conducted only for very few plant groups such as cycads, conifers, mangroves and ...

Whilst we were closed, we lost vital income that supported our world-class horticultural and conservation work. We need your help more than ever to protect the future of Kew. If you can't get to the ...

I have recently completed conservation of a large collection of botanical watercolours that were on a variety of supports including paper, vellum and a very fragile Chinese paper. The Ann Lee ...

Letter and plans from Kew's Directors' Correspondence archive give a glimpse into the humble beginnings of one of botany's most revered institutions - Missouri Botanical Garden - and its founder Henry ...

The Director's Correspondence contains letters from several members of the Veitch family, famed for the Veitch & Sons Nurseries, a name synonymous with horticulture for much of the 18th century, when ...

Recently-released IUCN Red List assessments for slipper orchids from the temperate Northern Hemisphere show that a shocking 79% of species are threatened with extinction. Mike Fay, Head of Genetics ...

This year’s International Day for Biological Diversity highlights the uniqueness of island biodiversity and the threats it faces, yet so much of island diversity remains essentially unknown. On 22 May ...