There are about ten thousand plants in the glasshouse, so I can only mention but a few.
Musella lasiocarpa, the lotus flowered banana, so named because its flower resemble a lotus flower, is an Asian plant which is used as a source of healing herbs and its leaves are used for weaving fabrics. In an age when manmade fibres are becoming less viable, as they are oil-based, we will need natural alternatives. The plant is good for erosion control on steep hillsides, as it has strong and widespread roots.
Another plant with medicinal use is Dioscorea deltoidea, the Nepal yam. This is an indeible yam,but its roots, vigorous rhizomes, are a source of steroids with medicinal uses, some of which are anti-inflammatories. Kew is preserving this plant so that its seeds can be collected and used in medicinal research.
Some are extinct in the wild. Take the case of Abutila pitcairnense, the yellow fatu. Native to Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the refuge of the Bounty Mutineers, it is extinct in its native home due to predation by goats and rats, and its only home is now Kew. Another endangered one is Banksia brownii, which is an Australian plant with reddish brown flowers whose seeds break their dormancy in bushfires, which serve to spread them. In its native land it is endangered by development, so its being protected at Kew.
Or let's turn to the tree on whose leaves Robinson Crusoe might have looked. Alexander Selkirk, a privateer [legal pirate permitted to raid the king's enemies] had no confidence in his equally villainous, but incompetent captain and so asked to be marooned on Juan Fernandez Island off South America, where he remained three and a half years. He was wise, for the ship sank and the crew were captured by the Spanish, who were not pleased with English pirates..There Selkirk, one of the men on whom Defoe based his tale of Robinson Crusoe, fed on goats introduced to the island as food supplies by British privateers and whatever else he could eat. The cabbage tree, Dendroseris lioralis, has large cabbage shaped leaves which are excellent goat food, though they are too rubbery for humans to digest. Found only on Juan Fernandez this small, easily cultivatable tree is easily stripped of its leaves by goats, so it is being propagated at Kew. By the way, the name cabbage tree is a popular colloquial, non-scientific name applied to a few different species of tree.
Ten thousand species is more than I can detail here, but I hope that you can get a taste of the Temperate House, a sip from the wine cellar of horticultural glory.It opens tomorrow, fifth of May 2018, in time for the Spring bank holiday weekend. Expect it to be busy!
Comments
I don't know whether there were set aside plants or what happened to the sprayed ones.
My father was due to be flown out when he was asked to check that nothing had been accidentally left, but the plane took off without him.
When I said that he ate American style I meant that instead of the short rations that the British suffered he enjoyed the bounteous supplies of the US military. He told me that he was given can loads of good stew, and that after four days with barely any food he just ate!
frankbeswick, Did the Channel Isles head gardener manage to set aside back-up plants? Do we know what happened to the sulfuric acid-sprayed plants? (The actor Richard Harris said in the film that he described as the one he wished he'd never acted in, Caprice, that everyone underestimates the English.)
That's an endearing, inspiring story about your father that deserves to be told. How was he "accidentally abandoned"? Were the identifies of the food served "American style" (perhaps your side of the pond's fish and chips were this side's fish and fries) in the field kitchen included in your father's memoirs?
Derdriu
When Hitler was planning to invade Britain he ordered our future Gauleiter to draw up plans for what to steal. That they would have stolen plant collections is shown by the fact that when the Nazis took the Channel Isles they ordered the head gardener of a plant collection to package it up for transport to Germany. He said,"yes sir" and did as he was told, but only after he lightly sprayed the plants with sulfuric acid!
Talking about wartime supplies to Britain and the problems therewith, brings a happy incident to mind. My father was always grateful to the US air force for helping him out when he was accidentally abandoned at a deserted air strip in North Africa. He and his three comrades were down to their last egg when the USAF arrived."Get in the jeep" said the friendly US airman, who then drove like a stunt driver across the desert to a USAF field kitchen, where the four hungry Brits were fed American style! This account deserves telling.
frankbeswick, Thank you for the information and for the insight into why Nazis would spare Kew.
Kew survival makes me think of another example of plant survival, but as among processed foods for Brits. Chris Barton, in Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion, says that your side of the pond was suffering from German U-boat attacks against supply ships for the isles' borderline starving peoples until the British Royal Navy tried out location- and destination-confusing ship exterior art patterns.
1: It took a year for the problems to be noticed and another year to put right.It was not a widespread mistake, as green glass was expensive.
2:The ventilation system works by pulling a long metal handle which simply opens the window.
3: I don't know whether Kew was on an exemption list, but the Nazis might have spared it so that they could steal the plants when they invaded.
4:Yes,it sounds like Kew, which is an arboretum.
frankbeswick, Thank you for the personal tour, practical information and product lines.
How soon did it become obvious that Decimus Burton erred in integrating green glass, and was that a widespread error about equating green light with plant growth and vice versa?
How does the ventilation system that you describe as a "manual pulley system still found in older glasshouses" function?
Is it possible that, without any direct hits, Kew made it to the exemptions from bombing targets during World War II in England and Germany?
Tuesday I listened to a Tree Fund webinar on urban health and urban trees. It sounds like Kew, in "crowded South-East of England," qualifies as a shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) type experience of immersing oneself in the goodness of plants to the benefit of one's own health and undoubtedly of the plants (especially orphans such as lotus flowered banana, Nepal yam and yellow fatu) as well.
One reason to take a suppy of seeds larger than two is that some plants are not great at producing viable seeds and so have a high rate of germination failure, so a larger stock is necessary. Also older seeds are less viable than younger ones.
Two at least! More for some really rare plants, if Kew can get enough of their seeds. In this project Kew is co-operating with other seed banks, such as the one at Garden Organic in Worcestershire, Western England, and the international seed bank on Svalbard. Some rare plants like the cycad that I mentioned may be propagated by vegetative techniques ,e.g. micropropagation, but this is not as desirable as seed propagation, for these techniques result simply in clones. which can contain genetic flaws.
The millennium project at Kew is remarkable indeed.
They are getting and storing two seeds of every known plant on the entire planet so that no plant will ever die out. Incredible.
Yes indeed.