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
Kew's Millennium Seed Bank joins seed swap events
31 Jan 2012
Following the success of our Great Seed Swap, held at Wakehurst on 17 September 2011, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank is supporting seed swap events around Sussex and further afield this year.
Kew is recruiting a new Director
30 Jan 2012
After six years at Kew, the current Director (CEO and Chief Scientist), Professor Stephen D. Hopper FLS will be returning to Australia to take up a Chair in Biodiversity at The University of Western Australia.
GIS surveys in New Guinea
13 Dec 2011
Kew botanists have helped to survey the vegetation of Biak Island, off the north coast of New Guinea.
World's smallest waterlily brought back from the brink of extinction at Kew
18 May 2010
Kew’s top propagation ‘code-breaker’, horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, has cracked the enigma of growing a rare species of African waterlily. The 'thermal’ lily (Nymphaea thermarum) is believed to be the smallest waterlily in the world, with pads that can be as little as 1 cm in diameter.
Director (CEO and Chief Scientist) of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to return to Australia
14 Sep 2011
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew announced today that Director (CEO and Chief Scientist), Professor Stephen Hopper FLS will step down in autumn 2012 after six years in the job.
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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