This exhibition is running between 1 April and 19th June 2025 in the Library & Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Synopsis:
By the late eighteenth century, the Linnaean system of classification, that being the hierarchic division of nature into classes, orders, genera and species, the last two categories of which formed a Linnaean binomial name, dominated natural history in Britain. Kew was no exception, with elite naturalists such as Joseph Banks (1776–1820) influencing the practices of collecting, describing and illustrating species. Banks had a profound impact on Kew’s development, initiating numerous expeditions to far flung areas of the world, building collections of specimens, illustrations, seeds and living plants designed to enrich the content of the gardens.