Featured Stories
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Use our species browser to search through over 350 profiles of plants and fungi.
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Fungi are unique and important organisms which belong to their own kingdom, completely separate from plants and animals.
Learn more about this group - which is thought to contain up to 5 million species around the world!
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Plants & Fungi from Kew
Kew's international work helps to discover and describe the world’s plant and fungal diversity, conserve plants and habitats, promote the sustainable use of plants, and inspire an appreciation of plants and the environment.
Explore Kew's plant & fungi profiles
Can't find the species you're looking for? Search Kew's databases and publications.
Behind-the-scenes at Kew's Fungarium
All plants on Earth rely on fungi to live, and fungi out number plants six to one. The largest organism in the world is a fungus that is over 1,000 years old, covering hundreds of acres in a forest in Oregon USA!
This film goes behind-the-scenes of Kew's Fungarium, which holds around 1.25 million specimens making it the largest collection of dried fungi in the world.
The power of plants
Sweet wormwood is a sweetly aromatic herb that contains artemisinin naturally in its leaves.
The chemical artemisinin is a potent anti-malarial agent and has become extremely important in treating malaria, since resistance to many other anti-malarials has become widespread.
Star plants at the British Museum
Browse images of star plants featuring in this year's North American Landscape at the British Museum.
'Coubertin oak' at Kew
In 1890, an English oak (Quercus robur) was planted in honour of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a founder of the Olympic Games.
In April 2012, a ribbon of 40 oaks grown from acorns of the 'Coubertin oak' will be planted between the Olympic Park in London and Much Wenlock in Shropshire, to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic Games. One of these will be planted at Kew Gardens.
Plants & Fungi - news and blogs
The cool blue seeds of the Malagasy traveller’s tree
by: Wolfgang Stuppy, Millennium Seed Bank blog 06 Mar 2012
Truly blue seeds are about as rare as hens’ teeth. In the first of his ‘Seed of the Month’ series, Millennium Seed Bank seed morphologist, Wolfgang Stuppy, explains why.
- 29 likes
- 4 comments
Studying yams in Madagascar
by: Tim Harris, Herbarium blog 27 Jan 2012
Kew and Feedback Madagascar are collaborating to look at the preferences for different species of edible yam in Madagascan rural communities. Find out about the latest research being undertaken as part of Kew's work in Madagascar.
- 9 likes
- 0 comments
Conservators care for tapa cloth at Kew
by: Daniel Barter & Cristina Liria, Economic Botany blog 15 Aug 2011
Two conservation students from Camberwell College of Arts have spent three weeks surveying barkcloth specimens from the Pacific.
- 5 likes
- 0 comments
Extinct to secure: how we saved Ascension’s endemic parsley fern
by: Colin Clubbe, UK Overseas Territories team blog 23 Dec 2010
In the space of 17 months, the status of the tiny Ascension Island parsley fern (Anogramma ascensionis) has gone from 'thought extinct' to 'secure' because of the amazing collaborative efforts of a small group of very dedicated people.
- 29 likes
- 1 comment
The cool blue seeds of the Malagasy traveller’s tree
by: Wolfgang Stuppy, Millennium Seed Bank blog 06 Mar 2012
Truly blue seeds are about as rare as hens’ teeth. In the first of his ‘Seed of the Month’ series, Millennium Seed Bank seed morphologist, Wolfgang Stuppy, explains why.
- 29 likes
- 4 comments
From Chelsea to Mount Fuji, the legacy of Veitch Nurseries
by: Virginia Mills, Library, Art and Archives blog 20 May 2011
Harry Veitch brought the RHS flower show to Chelsea. His brother brought Japanese flora to Europe. Find out more about the Veitch's from Kew's Directors' Correspondence collection.
- 19 likes
- 1 comment
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