Flora on cue
At Kew Gardens, in West London, one can enjoy the tranquillity of nature while learning about plants from across the globe.
THEY were fluttering around in their pink and white glory, drawing squeals from tourists, the sakura (cherry) blossoms, like nature’s confetti.
I am at Kew Gardens; cautiously optimistic as I bathe in the spring sunshine, after the harsh winter (by London standards), had rendered it a bridge too far. Fortunately the spring flowers have stuck to their gardening calendar, taking turns to regale crowds with their bounteous beauty as nature’s hand turns the pages day by day.
Seeing these cherry blossoms I cannot stop the sakura song from my childhood playing in my head. As I step away from the cherry walk I chance upon huge trees laden with flowers, one looking like a snow-covered tree – magnolias in all shapes and sizes on shrubs and trees several metres high.
While the cherry blossoms resemble delicate, fluffy clouds, magnolias have large, thick, leathery petals. Some hang like chandeliers, others are shaped like cups and goblets. My favourite, bright pink with its petals twisted to show its white underside like birds in flight, is called Star Wars.
From mid-February Kew displays nature’s tapestry, starting with crocuses that burst out of the winter soil like small light bulbs, to signal the start of spring. Thousands of bulbs sown on the lawn opposite Victoria gate a few years ago continue to produce a carpet of purple and white.
Kew Gardens, in West London on the flight path to Heathrow, is an oasis of colours for a city of sky scrappers like London. Even in winter its glasshouses enable visitors to enjoy the tranquillity of nature whilst learning about plants from across the globe.
The 132ha botanical gardens and its glasshouses contain the largest living plant collection in the world, made up of 30,000 species. Its herbarium has approximately seven million reference specimens collected from all around the world. Although it might not have the title of the oldest botanical garden in the, Kew is renowned as the place for scientists to conduct their botanical research.
Kew’s history dates back to 1759 when the gardens belonged Augusta, the Princess of Wales (mother of King George III). She and her husband, Prince Frederick loved plants and had great plans for the gardens but Frederick died in 1751 before their plans could be realised and it was left to Augusta to carry it out.
The gardens also house Kew Palace where King George III was incarcerated when he was declared mad in 1781, to avoid public gaze. Today his “madness” might be diagnosed as manic depression or bipolar disorder, an ailment that has stopped becoming taboo after it become associated with talented people like Robin Williams and Stephen Fry.
It was in 1773, during the time of George III, that Joseph Banks laid the foundations of Kew as the world’s leading botanical gardens. Banks was a wealthy landowner, plant collector and botanist. When not embarking on voyages in search of plants, he funded others. He had sailed with Captain Cook on the Endeavour and returned to a hero’s welcome in 1771. His tenure as director of Kew had lasted 50 years.
Unfortunately, after his death in 1820, Kew went into decline through underfunding (a problem that is revisiting Kew today). Despite that, the plants grown in the gardens during his time are still thriving centuries later.
Among them is one of the oldest pot plants in the world: the Encephalartos altensteinii (cycad) was collected in the early 1770s from Eastern Cape region of South Africa, by Banks’ plant hunter Francis Masson. Cycads have been in existence since the days of the dinosaurs. Many of the exotic plants and flowers gracing homes the length and breadth of Britain today owe their origins to Kew – Banks had been generous with sharing his new acquisitions with nurseries.
The cycad planted in 1775 is still thriving in the Palm House, bent double not with age, but by the confines of space. But, even older than that is the Styphnolobium japonicum or Japanese pagoda tree planted before Hooker’s time, in 1760. It is still alive today even though its half rotten trunk had to be propped up with bricks.
One of my favourite places at Kew in spring is the rhododendron dell, a short walk from the Palm House. Azaleas, in bright purple and pink lead you to the dell like a beacon, before you chance upon a huge rhododendron tree covered in red flowers. There, different-coloured rhododendron, their petals appear soft and delicate belie the invasive nature of this imported plant which starves the soil of nutrients for native species to thrive.
Joseph Hooker travelled to the Himalayas in 1847 and among the plants he brought back were these rhododendrons. Fortunately not many of the plants brought to Kew are of this nature, like the delightful cherry blossoms from Japan and the magnolias from China.
Kew’s decline ended in 1840 when it was handed over to the state. It was under the father and son team of William and Joseph
Hooker that Kew recovered its botanical verve. During this golden period the herbarium was set up and the Palm House and Temperate House built. Joseph was a plant collector and through his contacts amongst plant hunters and explorers, specimens would be sent to the herbarium and living plants brought back from expeditions for the botanical gardens.
Kew Gardens is a place every Malaysian should include in their tour itinerary. It was during Joseph’s directorship that Henry Wickham was tasked with bringing back 70,000 rubber seeds from Brazil in 1876. Only four per cent of them germinated and the seedlings were sent to Colombo in Sri Lanka and Singapore, where they thrived. One of the nine seedlings brought to Malaya was planted in Kuala Kangsar in 1877 and is a living legacy of Joseph’s contribution to our economic botany.
Joseph continued Bank’s work with explorers and plant hunters, which had been halted when the gardens went into decline between 1820 and 1840. One of these explorers was Charles Darwin, whose correspondence and specimens in the herbarium will tell intriguing stories.
In 1862, Darwin wrote to Hooker about some specimens of a Madagascan orchid that he had received. The Angraecum sesquipedale, whose genus name is derived from the Malay word for orchid (anggerik), has a flower spur of 25cm.
Darwin wrote: “Good heavens, what insect can suck it.” He predicted that the orchid would have to be pollinated by a moth with a long proboscis. But it wasn’t until 1907, 20 years after his death, that a subspecies of gigantic moth from Madagascar with a proboscis of over 20cm was identified. It was named Xanthopan morganii praedicta. But for almost a century, nobody saw the moth pollinating the flower.
The breakthrough came in 1992 when biologist, Lutz T. Wasserthal from the University of Erlangen in Germany, used an infrared camera to capture the moth feeding on the nectar by unfurling its proboscis and inserting it into the flower spur.
Today Kew manages a network of 800 conservation organisations in 100 countries around the world including Malaysia. Closer to home, its scientists have even helped to solve crime. In 2003 Kew’s scientists were called upon by the Metropolitan police to help in the riddle of a headless boy found in the River Thames in 2001. From a bag containing the contents of the boy’s stomach, Kew’s scientists identified the toxic calabar bean used in witchcraft, found in Southern Nigeria.
So, next time, you waste your tourist ringgit on an over-priced opportunity to pose next to a waxed version of your favourite celebrity, think how much better that money could be used if you spent it on a visit to Kew Gardens.