New discoveries to science from Kew
Over 250 years, Kew has made many discoveries about the fascinating worlds of plants and fungi. Each year, many new species of plant and fungi are discovered by our world class scientists.
We discover new things about the plants and fungi every day. This includes how different species relate to one another and new ways to use plants to make life easier and better.
Plants are essential to life on earth. In a world where our changing environment is becoming less and less certain, the power of plants combined with Kew’s scientific expertise is ever more critical.
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Discovering common fungi
29 Feb 2012
A PhD student helps to discover a new class of fungi.
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Roses are red, violets are blue...and human heads are sign of good luck!
by: Virginia Mills, Library, Art and Archives blog13 Feb 2012
As Valentine's Day approaches, discover the unusual way Taiwanese aborigines went about attracting a partner in the 19th Century, and why plant collector Richard Oldham said the Taiwan mountains were too dangerous a place to collect.
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Phylogenetics of epiphytic cacti
31 Jan 2012
DNA sequence analysis improves our understanding of the relationships between the epiphytic cacti.
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Antarctic heroes
by: Christina Harrison, Kew magazine blog17 Jan 2012
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the day Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his team reached the South Pole. But did you know that in the Joseph Hooker exhibition at Kew Gardens, you can see a letter from Scott to Sir Joseph Hooker?
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12 new flavonoids discovered in Kew tree
12 Jan 2012
In the 2011 International Year of Forests, scientists report the discovery of 12 compounds new to science in a tree growing at Kew Gardens.
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Trees influence epiphyte and invertebrate communities
04 Jan 2012
Scientists have found that genetically similar tropical trees host similar species assemblages of epiphytes and invertebrates.
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Linear sequences for seed plants
20 Dec 2011
Scientists have been working out the best way to arrange plant specimens in herbaria and other collections so that their order best reflects evolutionary relationships.
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Sir Joseph Hooker and the UK Overseas Territories
by: Pat Griggs, UK Overseas Territories team blog09 Dec 2011
On the 100th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest botanists of the Victorian era, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, find out about the unique plants that he encountered on his visits to the UKOTs and how this experience influenced his theories on plant distribution, which he later shared with Charles Darwin.
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World's first night-flowering orchid is discovered
22 Nov 2011
Botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis have described the first night-flowering orchid known to science on the island of New Britain, near New Guinea.
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Plant remains tell a two thousand year story of landscape change
14 Nov 2011
Archaeological plant remains from an environmentally degraded valley in the deserts of southern Peru reveal the rise and fall of agricultural production.
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