Botanists fight removal of plant specimens from one of the world ’s most spectacular gardens

The herbarium at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew may be the largest and most significant plant collection in the world. It contains more than 7 million specimens dried and pressed on paper sheets; laid end to end, they would extend three times the length of the United Kingdom. The research at Kew, in southwest London, is equally impressive, says Barbara Thiers, who for many years directed the herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden. “What Kew does is immensely important and immensely influential.” But controversial plans for the herbarium , announced in June, have left Thiers and many other botanists worried about the future of that work. Kew is planning to relocate the herbarium nearly 60 kilometers away from the gardens and current research labs, a move that opponents—including many Kew staff—say is unnecessary and will hamper their research. More than 15,000 people, including plant scientists around the world, have signed a petition to keep the herbarium in its current, historic building . “There are very few people in my field who think this is probably a good thing,” Thiers says. “It might be, in the end, but the devil is definitely in the details.” Despite the opposition, last month Kew’s management announced it was moving ahead with the plan, which it says is vital for housing and protecting an ever-growing collection of plant and fungi specimens, and for collaborating with other institutions. “This is a historic decisi...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news