Getting excited for the David Nash exhibition at Kew Gardens!

the bear devil is in the detail

Beyond the Gardens - The Fungarium at Kew Gardens

Because shrooms are ace!

Colonel Robert Kyd (1746–1793)

A British army officer stationed in India Kyd founded the Botanic Garden in Calcutta in 1787. Man, if they ever make a film he is totally being played by Nicholas Cage.

Herbert Wernham….

“… if Robert Ross’ predilection was a common one, the story of Herbert Wernham was a little odder. He was a curator in the Botany Department. In the 1910s he wrote on the suitably named madder family, Rubiacea. Edmund Launert told me that Wernham was always broke. He frequently took his wages in cash. He was soon relieved of his earnings by two women who appeared every Friday on the dot at the back of the Museum. Even so, he always had something at the pawnbrokers. But the most extraordinary part of his story was that after he died a card index was found which contained a series of neat entries filed in alphabetical order. On each card was the name of one of his sexual conquests accompanied by a neatly pined sprig of pubic hair. They might have been so many delicately coloured ferns. It seems that the instincts of the systematist were so deeply ingrained that he must perforce make an archive, duly arranged. Once a curator, always a curator.”

                                                                  Richard Fortey, Dry Store Room No. 1

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

thanks to ratsoff:

Back to work, everybody.

(via ikanacanyon.)

(Source: watsonaut)

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker  (1817 – 1911)

Blink and you’ll miss the un-named Hooker (don’t search that on tumblr…) as one of Darwin’s closest friends and confidants in the recent biopic Creation (2009). I’m starting to think he’s totally worthy of a film all of his own.

GO ON CUMBERBATCH, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO…. 

Hooker was a botanist and explorer accompanying Captain Ross on his Antarctic expedition to the South Magnetic Pole on board HMS Erebus, and undertook a three year expedition to the Himalayas. He was imprisoned by the Dewan of Sikkim whilst travelling towards the Chola Pass, Tibet; awarded the highest honours of British science, oh and did I mention that he wrote a hecka-lot of letters to just about anyone who was anyone across the Victorian globe.

Also he really liked dogs & was pretty nifty with a pencil and sketchpad.

Come on guys, what more do you need?!

A neat looking documentary on Hooker’s travels is in production ^___^

There’s also a great Royal Society podcast (number 31) ‘Smashing species, Joseph Hooker and Victorian science’ by historian of science and Hookerphile Jim Endersby.

Nathaniel Wallich

So You Think You Can Digitize (Blog) →

A view of Mount Tandai, north east of Mount Morrison, with a species of Pinus in the foreground, from W.R. Price’s papers, 1912

thanks to invisiblestories:

An example of cross-writing, 1823 (via rhea137)

Sometimes this is all I can remember dreaming about.

Kew’s World Garden, 1941

THIS IS A THING THAT EXISTS!

I spent most of yesterday reading letters from this awesome guy.

Sometimes work rocks.