By Paul Evans

Kew is more than a venerable historic institution; it is a living thing, a community of plants and people that has grown through the centuries. Kew tells us about the past (inglorious though some of its stories are) and it is telling us about our future, too.

When we learn that government ministers are refusing to guarantee long-term funding for Kew I worry that new threats to plants and places will multiply without the research to describe what those threats mean. It  has already had to lay off 50 scientists.

By Claudia Lauer

The teeming plant world could become a virtual mystery in the coming decades as college students increasingly shy away from studying botany and universities across the U.S. shutter their long-standing herbaria.