When hair is bleached, using chemicals like hydrogen peroxide, it breaks down the melanin. This causes the hair colour to ...

Join Botanical Horticulturalist Joe Richomme to learn about the spooky origins of this autumn tradition, along with discovering where the modern pumpkin comes from, and learn some of the secrets on ...

Discover a brand-new, after dark Halloween trail full of hidden surprises. This spooky season, Kew Gardens will transform into a spooktacular adventure, brought to you by the producers of Christmas at ...

James Wearn, leading a project called ‘Kew Gardens at War’, describes how one poppy helped to keep pain away during wartime while another poppy lets us remember and reflect on the pain and sorrow of ...

World Forest ID was created in 2017 by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the World Resources Institute, the United States Forestry Service, Agroisolab and the Forest Stewardship Council, bringing ...

William Milliken, Head of Kew's Tropical America team, examines the importance of Kew's collection of over seven million herbarium specimens, and how this resource is being used to tackle the global ...

Gerhard Prenner, researcher in plant morphology and anatomy, presents his recent studies on Abrus precatorius, a "deadly beauty" with fascinating flowers and inflorescences. The genus Abrus consists ...

Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by plants, especially all things edible that come from them. And the more exotic the plant, the better! After blogging about the cashew nuts, a very ...

Directors' Correspondence digitiser, Kat Harrington looks at letters to Kew's first official Director, Sir William Jackson Hooker, sent from Brazil. The first is from Maria Graham (in later life, ...

I have recently completed conservation of a large collection of botanical watercolours that were on a variety of supports including paper, vellum and a very fragile Chinese paper. The Ann Lee ...

A letter in the Directors' Correspondence archive describes how the deadly prediction of an old Chinese proverb about bamboo flowering came true. "When the bamboo flowers, famine, death and ...