One of the oldest Archive records of plants in our Gardens is this 'Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs' from 1773. It was found in Windsor Castle library almost 200 years later and transferred by the Royal Librarian to the Keeper of the Herbarium & Library, Arthur Cotton.

It is the last week of Orchids of Lindisfarne, which features paintings of orchids by botanical artist Reinhild Raistrick. Come along to the Herbarium at Kew Green to visit, open Tuesday-Thursday 10am-4pm.

#BotanicalIllustration #OrchidsofLindisfarne #KewLibraryandArchives

A Transylvanian flora with a black leather binding and edges that remind us of bloodshot eyes... Published in Sibiu in 1866. Any attempts at #deciphering the #handwriting on the title page? #ForeEdgeFriday #Romania #Romania n #aroundtheworldin80books #RareBooks

Our Archives team recently repackaged a new accession for our Charles Baron Clarke collection, including these letters. A very compact way of writing correspondence - unusually neat compared to the majority of our letters 🧐

#archives

Happy Easter from the Library, Illustrations & Archives teams here at Kew! 🌺 Lilium longiflorum is also called the Easter Lily or Bermuda Easter Lily! In one of our Goods Inwards volumes and some letters we can see that Kew received Lilium harrisii from W T James in Bermuda.

If you are quick, you might just catch the magnolias in bloom in the Gardens – a sign that Spring is on the way! This illustration of Magnolia campbelli is from the book ‘Illustrations of Himalayan plants’ (1855), and is by the prolific illustrator Walter Hood Fitch. #magnolias

This stunner from our collection is the 1860 'Some of my bush friends in Tasmania: native flowers, berries, and insects, drawn from life, illustrated in verse, and briefly described' by Louisa Anne Meredith. #aroundtheworldin80books #Tasmania #RareBooks #WomenArtists #moths

The use of a miswak - a twig from the plant Salvadora persica - for tooth hygiene is an essential element of religious ablutions for many Muslims. Miswak has been shown to prevent tooth decay and gum disease. (from 'Plants of the coast of Coromandel', 1795) #wudu #medicinalplants

Naturalistic planting in #garden ing may seem like a very modern thing, but Irish gardener and writer William Robinson already promoted the idea in 1870 with his book 'The Wild Garden'. Our first edition copy has a beautiful green Victorian binding.
#rarebooks #shelfie #garden

Today is #WorldForestryDay ! This picture depicts a lush forest in Borneo, painted by Marianne North in 1876. Amidst the ongoing threat of deforestation, with 10 million hectares lost annually, it is likely this landscape has changed drastically since this painting was completed.

Kew Research Repository 🧐

6500 records now on the Kew Research Repository, part of the British Library’s Shared Repository for Independent Research Organisations

RBG Kew repository: kew.iro.bl.uk

Cultural Heritage Shared Repository Service - iro.bl.uk

🚨 Archives Graduate Traineeship position

Join our Archives team as a trainee and gain valuable experience pre-qualification! We're looking for an enthusiastic trainee to help with managing our collections and making them more accessible.

Apply here: careers.kew.org/vacancy/archiv…

🚨 Library Graduate Trainee position

Looking for a career in Librarianship? Need experience before starting your course in Librarianship and Information Science? Check out our two-year Library Graduate Trainee position:

careers.kew.org/internal/vacan…

Yesterday was #StPatricksDay !🍀 The plant associated with the day and Ireland is of course the clover (also called trefoil) from the genus Trifolium. Legend has it that Saint Patrick used the three-leafed plant to symbolise the Holy Trinity in Christianity.

Last week was #IWD2024 and our Archives team attended the 'Stories of Women and the Past' event Society of Antiquaries of London - all about the Beyond Notability project! This effort has focused on finding the names, lives, and work of women in the archives and resulted in a fantastic event!

Many of our books were donations from the private collections of scientists associated with Kew. We love finding #bookplates like these, which remind us of their provenance. What image would you choose for your own personalised bookplate? #ExLibris #rarebooks

Our Illustrations & Artefacts Curator, Lynn, recently attended the installation and opening ceremony for the exhibition 'Botanical Art and the Development of Delicious Food', The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki, Japan 茨城県近代美術館 #botanicalillustration #economicplants #botany

Last Sunday was #WorldWildlifeDay2024 , so we selected some colourful images from W.F. Kirby's 1889 'European butterflies and moths' for you 🦋! A digitised copy is available via the BHL 👉ow.ly/YM5q50QKKp4 .

#Gardenwildlife #rarebooks #lepidoptera