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  • 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.

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Images

  • [Illustrated order form for The Chelsea Herbalist's (Worthing, west Sussex) bags of dried herbs and pot pourri].
  • [Illustrated order form for The Chelsea Herbalist's (Worthing, west Sussex) bags of dried herbs and pot pourri].
  • [Illustrated order form for The Chelsea Herbalist's (Worthing, west Sussex) bags of dried herbs and pot pourri].
  • [Illustrated order form for The Chelsea Herbalist's (Worthing, west Sussex) bags of dried herbs and pot pourri].
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Matricaria recutita (Wild chamomile)
  • Glechoma hederacea (Ground ivy)
  • Balsamita major (Alecost or Costmary)
  • Papaver somniferum (Opium poppy)
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Catalogue

All works (35)