Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a
non-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of n ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
sponsored by the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United K ...
. An internationally important
botanical
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by
Dame Amelia Fawcett.
The organisation manages
botanic gardens at Kew in
Richmond upon Thames
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in southwest London forms part of Outer London and is the only London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the London ...
in south-west London, and at
Wakehurst Wakehurst may refer to:
Places:
*Electoral district of Wakehurst, electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales
*Wakehurst (formerly known as Wakehurst Place), a property owned by the National Trust and m ...
, a
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
property in
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
which is home to the internationally important
Millennium Seed Bank
The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP or MSB), formerly known as the Millennium Seed Bank Project, is the largest ''ex situ'' plant conservation programme in the world coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. After being awarded a Mi ...
, whose scientists work with partner organisations in more than 95 countries.
Kew, jointly with the
Forestry Commission
The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England.
The Forestry Commission was previously also respon ...
, founded
Bedgebury National Pinetum
Bedgebury National Pinetum at Bedgebury, Kent, in the United Kingdom, is a recreational and conservational arboretum managed by Forestry England that was established as the National Conifer Collection in 1925 and is now recognised as the most ...
in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
in 1923, specialising in growing
conifers
Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extan ...
. In 1994, the Castle Howard Arboretum Trust, which runs the
Yorkshire Arboretum, was formed as a partnership between Kew and the
Castle Howard
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, within the civil parish of Henderskelfe, located north of York. It is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years. ...
Estate.
In 2019, the organisation had 2,316,699 public visitors at Kew, and 312,813 at Wakehurst.
Its site at Kew has 40 historically important buildings; it became a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
in 2003. The collections at Kew and Wakehurst include over 27,000 taxa of living plants, 8.3 million plant and fungal herbarium specimens, and over 40,000 species in the seed bank.
Mission
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew states that its mission is to apply scientific discovery and research to fully develop the information about and potential uses of plants and fungi.
A conference held in 1976 by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew was important as it established a co-ordinating body in order to determine which threatened plants are in cultivation and where they are located which played a role in plant conservation.
Governance
Kew is governed by a
board of trustees
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
which comprises a chairman and eleven members. Ten members and the chairman are appointed by the
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, also referred to as the environment secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = H ...
.
His Majesty the King appoints his own trustee on the recommendation of the Secretary of State. the Board members are:
* Dame
Amelia Fawcett
Dame Amelia Chilcott Fawcett (born 16 September 1956) is an American-British business executive who is currently Chairman of Kinnevik AB ( Stockholm) and Lead Director of State Street Corporation ( Boston, Massachusetts). Fawcett is the Chairm ...
(Chair)
* Judith Batchelar
* Steve Almond
* Sarah Flannigan
* Professor Christopher Gilligan
* Professor Ian Graham
*
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Krishnan Guru-Murthy (born 5 April 1970) is a British journalist. He is the lead presenter of ''Channel 4 News''. He also presents '' Unreported World'', a foreign-affairs documentary series.
Early life
Guru-Murthy's father, an Indian consul ...
* Kate Priestman
* Sir
Paul Nurse
Sir Paul Maxime Nurse (born 25 January 1949) is an English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along ...
* David Richardson
* John Scanlon
* Jantiene Klein Roseboom van der Veer
Kew Science
Scientific staff
There are approximately 350 researchers working at Kew. The Director of Science is Alexandre Antonelli. The Deputy Directors are Paul Kersey and
Monique Simmonds
Monique Sheelagh Jacquard Simmonds is a botanist who is deputy keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department ...
.
Kew Science staff include those of the
Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre
The Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre (KMCC) is a non-governmental organisation working on plant research and conservation in Madagascar. It is a dependency of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Kew's third research site. Aside its main office i ...
.
Databases
The scientific staff at Kew maintain a variety of plant and fungal data and digital resources, including:
Plants of the World Online
Plants of the World Online is an online database launched in March 2017 as one of nine strategic outputs with the ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known
seed-bearing plants
A spermatophyte (; ), also known as phanerogam (taxon Phanerogamae) or phaenogam (taxon Phaenogamae), is any plant that produces seeds, hence the alternative name seed plant. Spermatophytes are a subset of the embryophytes or land plants. They inc ...
by 2020". It links taxonomic data with images from the collection, to provide a single point of access with information on identification, distribution, traits, conservation, molecular phylogenies and uses. In addition it serves as a backbone for global resources such as
World Flora Online
World Flora Online is an Internet-based compendium of the world's plant species.
Description
The World Flora Online (WFO) is an open-access database, launched In October 2012 as a follow-up project to The Plant List, with the aim of publishing an ...
.
International Plant Names Index
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) includes information from the ''
Index Kewensis
The 1893 ''Index Kewensis'' (IK), maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a publication that aims to register all botanical names for seed plants at the rank of species and genera. It later came to include names of taxonomic families and ...
'', a project which began in the 19th century to provide an "Index to the Names and Authorities of all known flowering plants and their countries". The
Harvard University Herbaria
The Harvard University Herbaria and Botanical Museum are institutions located on the grounds of Harvard University at 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Botanical Museum is one of three which comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural ...
and the
Australian National Herbarium
The Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) is a heritage-listed botanical garden located in , Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Established in 1949, the Gardens is administered by the Australian Government's Departme ...
co-operate with Kew in the IPNI database, which was launched in its present form in 1999 to produce an authoritative source of information on
botanical nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from Alpha taxonomy, taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the ...
including publication details of seed plants,
ferns
A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except th ...
and
lycophytes
The lycophytes, when broadly circumscribed, are a vascular plant (tracheophyte) subgroup of the kingdom Plantae. They are sometimes placed in a division Lycopodiophyta or Lycophyta or in a subdivision Lycopodiophytina. They are one of the oldest ...
. It is a nomenclatural listing of all published taxonomic plant names including new species, new combinations and new names at rank of
botanical family down to infraspecific. It provides data for other related projects including
Tropicos
Tropicos is an online botanical database containing taxonomic information on plants, mainly from the Neotropical realm (Central, and South America). It is maintained by the Missouri Botanical Garden and was established over 25 years ago. The data ...
and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (
GBIF
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...
).
Neotropikey
Information and key to
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
s of the
Neotropics
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperat ...
(tropical South and Central America).
World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) is a register of accepted scientific names and synonyms of 200 selected seed plant families. WCSP is widely used, and most authoritative web resources on plants use it as their basis.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants
The World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) includes all known
vascular plant
Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...
species (
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
s,
conifer
Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...
s,
fern
A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except t ...
s,
clubmosses
Lycopodiopsida is a class of vascular plants known as lycopods, lycophytes or other terms including the component lyco-. Members of the class are also called clubmosses, firmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They have dichotomously branching s ...
, and
firmosses). It is derived from the WCSP and the IPNI and therefore only includes names found in those databases. It is the taxonomic database for Plants of the World Online. Since WCSP includes only selected families, WCVP will seek to complete the process.
World Checklist of Useful Plant Species
A checklist of 40,292 species, including nine non-plant taxa (e.g.
nostoc
''Nostoc'', also known as star jelly, troll’s butter, spit of moon, fallen star, witch's butter (not to be confused with the fungi commonly known as witches' butter), and witch’s jelly, is the most common genus of cyanobacteria found in vari ...
,
forkweed
Dictyotaceae is large family (biology), family of brown algae (class Phaeophyceae). Members of this family generally prefer warmer waters than other brown algae. ''Lobophora variegata'' (= ''Pocockiella varieagata'') often presents a beautiful b ...
,
brown algae
Brown algae (singular: alga), comprising the class Phaeophyceae, are a large group of multicellular algae, including many seaweeds located in colder waters within the Northern Hemisphere. Brown algae are the major seaweeds of the temperate and po ...
), compiled from multiple pre-existing datasets.
Collaborative projects
The Plant List
Kew also cooperated with the
Missouri Botanical Garden
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million spe ...
and other international bodies in
The Plant List
The Plant List was a list of botanical names of species of plants created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Missouri Botanical Garden and launched in 2010. It was intended to be a comprehensive record of all known names of plant species ...
(TPL). Unlike the IPNI, it provides information on which names are currently accepted. The Plant List is an
Internet encyclopedia project
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
which was launched in 2010 to compile a comprehensive list of
botanical nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from Alpha taxonomy, taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the ...
. The Plant List has 1,064,035 scientific plant names of species rank of which 350,699 are accepted species names. In addition, the list has 642 plant families and 17,020 plant genera. It was last updated in 2013, and was superseded by
World Flora Online
World Flora Online is an Internet-based compendium of the world's plant species.
Description
The World Flora Online (WFO) is an open-access database, launched In October 2012 as a follow-up project to The Plant List, with the aim of publishing an ...
.
World Flora Online
World Flora Online was developed as a successor to The Plant List, in 2012, aiming to include all known plants by 2020.
See also
* Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – its two main sites:
**
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...
**
Wakehurst Wakehurst may refer to:
Places:
*Electoral district of Wakehurst, electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales
*Wakehurst (formerly known as Wakehurst Place), a property owned by the National Trust and m ...
,
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...
*
Botanists active at Kew Gardens
*''
Curtis's Botanical Magazine
''The Botanical Magazine; or Flower-Garden Displayed'', is an illustrated publication which began in 1787. The longest running botanical magazine, it is widely referred to by the subsequent name ''Curtis's Botanical Magazine''.
Each of the issue ...
'', an illustrated publication which began in 1787 and is published by
Wiley-Blackwell
Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
*
Directors of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
This is a list of Directors of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
*1759–1793 William Aiton
*1793–1841 William Townsend Aiton
*1841–1865 Sir William Jackson Hooker
*1865–1885 Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
*1885–1905 S ...
*
GrassBase
GrassBase (or GrassBase – The Online World Grass Flora) is a web-based database of grasses, continually maintained and updated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
As of 2015, GrassBase was one of the largest (along with GrassWorld) structured ...
* ''
Index Kewensis
The 1893 ''Index Kewensis'' (IK), maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a publication that aims to register all botanical names for seed plants at the rank of species and genera. It later came to include names of taxonomic families and ...
'', a massive index of plant names started and maintained by Kew Gardens
*
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...
, who succeeded his father,
William Jackson Hooker
Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew he ...
, as director in 1865
* ''
Kew Bulletin
The ''Kew Bulletin'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal on plant and fungal taxonomy and conservation published by Springer Science+Business Media on behalf of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Articles on palynology, cytology, anatomy, ...
'', a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by
Springer Science+Business Media
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.
Originally founded in 1842 in ...
on behalf of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
*
The Great Plant Hunt, a primary school science initiative created by Kew Gardens, commissioned and funded by the
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...
*
Kew Gardens (Leases) Act 2019, an Act of Parliament relating to the Gardens
References
Sources
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External links
*
''A Year at Kew'' – BBC documentary behind the scenes at Kew Gardens
{{authority control
1759 establishments in England
Botanical research institutes
Charities based in London
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Exempt charities
Kew, London
Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government
Organisations based in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Herbaria in the United Kingdom