Botanical Gallery

Waterlily Pond, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, ca 1900

The waterlily pond, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, ca 1900. The pond was one of Sir William Thiselton-Dyer's additions, heated by condensed steam from the local water supply, making it possible to raise half-hardy aquatic plants. Some of the waterlilies in this photograph were supplied by the French nurseryman Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac. One of the first growers to successfully hybridize waterlillies, Marliac is probably best known for his yellow-flowered cultivar Nymphaea Marliacea Chromatella, which he sent to Kew in 1887. He is also renowned for contributing many of the waterlilies in Monet's garden at Giverny

© RBG Kew

Tamarindus indica, tamarind

Hand painted copy of an illustration of tamarind, commissioned by William Roxburgh. In his Flora Indica, Roxburgh describes this species as a magnificent tree, one of the largest in India. It generally flowers in May and ripens its fruit during the cold season. Roxburgh also reports an extract of a letter of Captain Pringle at Lucknow, where the qualities and the uses of various parts of this plant are explained. Other names: Tintri, Tintiree (Sanskrit); Tintiree, Tintil, Tentool (Bengali); Umli, Amli (Hindi); Chinta-chittoo (Telugu)

© The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Kew Gardens Question

The Kew Gardens Question. This political cartoon was published in 1878 as part of the ongoing debate as to whether the public should be allowed into the gardens in the mornings, before 1pm. Officially, only botanist and botanical artists were allowed morning access, with the Director's permission. The Kew Gardens Public Rights Defence Association was set up and successfully campaigned against this. The author of the article accompanying this cartoon smuggled himself into a morning session at the Gardens and claimed that those eminent botanists inside were mostly fast asleep in garden chairs and other gentlemen were "engaged in testing the effects of cigar smoke on open-air evergreens."

© RBG KEW