Horticultural Gallery

Seedlings of Cinchona succirubra, India, 1861

Seedlings of Cinchona succirubra, photographed on arrival in Ootacamund, southern India, 9 April 1861. Collected by Richard Spruce in Ecuador, the plants were received by WIlliam McIvor, a former Kew gardener, who was superintendent of the Botanic Garden in Ootacamund, where he successfully cultivated the red bark trees. Extracts of the bark of Cinchona produced quinine, a malaria medicine

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

Nymphaea thermarum is the smallest waterlily in the world

Nymphaea thermarum is the smallest waterlily in the world, and the only Nymphaea to grow in damp mud rather than water - This ‘thermal’ waterlily, which grew around freshwater hot springs, was discovered in 1987 by German botanist Professor Eberhard Fischer of Koblenz-Landau University. It is known from just one location in Mashyuza, in southwest Rwanda. However, it disappeared from there about two years ago due to over-exploitation of the hot spring that fed this fragile habitat. Water was prevented from reaching the surface, resulting in the desiccation of the few square metres where this species grew, and no plant is known to have survived in the wild

© RBG KEW