Stories
- Article
Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines
From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.
- Article
姜、蒜、葱 Ginger, garlic and spring onions
Nina Mingya Powles felt adrift in the UK, living thousands of miles from home. But nurturing familiar tastes and smells in her tiny balcony garden helped her roots begin to grow.
- Article
Cloves to mull, mask and numb
Sweet, pungent, warm, woody: cloves smell and taste like Christmas. But there’s much more to this spice than that.
- Article
Hunting lost plants in botanical collections
A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.
Catalogue
- Pictures
- Online
Fig (Ficus carica L.): 57 segments of flowers and fruits at different stages of maturity with detailed description. Coloured engraving by J.J. or J.E. Haid, c.1750, after G.D. Ehret.
Ehret, Georg Dionysius, 1708-1770.Date: [1750-53]Reference: 18380i- Ephemera
- Online
[Illustrated order form for The Chelsea Herbalist's (Worthing, west Sussex) bags of dried herbs and pot pourri].
Date: [1985?]- Archives and manuscripts
Billard, Michael
Billard, MichaelDate: 1650-1681Reference: MS.134- Pictures
Temple of Confucius (Kong Miao), Peking: Hall of Great Accomplishment (Dachengdian), interior with altar and tablet to Confucius. Photograph, 1981, from a negative by John Thomson, 1871.
Thomson, J. (John), 1837-1921.Date: 1981Reference: 19525i- Pictures
- Online
Lady's bedstraw (Galium verum L.): entire flowering plant with separate enlarged flower. Coloured etching by M. Bouchard, 1772.
Date: [1772]Reference: 16744i