Images Dated 2015 February

Cochineal beetle harvest, by Eadweard Muybridge

Dactylopius coccus, cochineal beetles being harvested from Opuntia cacti, Antigua, West Indies, for the production of carminic acid used in the carmine dye, cochineal. The mode of gathering cochineal in Antigua, by Eadweard Muybridge (purchased 1876 by Joseph Hooker for Kew)

© RBG KEW

Antigua, Archival, Archive, Beetles, Black And White, Botanic Garden, Botanical Garden, British Empire, Cacti, Cactus, Carmine, Carminic Acid, Cochineal, Colorant, Colourant, Crimson, Dacylopius Coccus, Dfemale, Dye, Eadweard Muybridge, Economic Botany, Empire, History, Kew Gardens, Kew Library, Labourers, Mono, Monochrome, Opuntia, Red, Scarlet, West Indies, Women, Workers

Stella Ross Craig, botanical artist

Stella Ross-Craig, born in 1906, received an early induction into plant life from her father, a botanist, who taught his young daughter to identify wild flowers. At 18 she enrolled in Thanet Art School and attended evening classes in botany. In 1929 she began contributing to Curtis's Botanical magazine and went on to submit more than 300 illustrations over the next 50 years. Her virtuosity for working in black and white is most effectively displayed in what is probably her most exceptional work "Drawings of British Plants". Produced between 1948 and 1973 it includes all native species excluding grasses and sedges, comprising 1316 plates in 31 parts

© RBG KEW

Women gardeners put on their clogs ready for work, World War II

Women gardeners were employed at Kew during World War II, after an interval of nearly a quarter of a century. Fourteen women were enrolled onto the staff in 1940, joined by a further thirteen in 1941. The women referred to their unifrom of apron and clogs as battledress'. The clogs were wooden soled shoes with leather uppers. One of the women, Jean Thompson told colleague Betty Cooper: "My most vivid impression was the difficulty I had balancing on the rocks in my clogs."

© RBG KEW