Kew Gardens: Botany and the British empire

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For centuries, Kew Gardens was the flash point for a lesser known British imperial project – the collection of plants from colonised nations for political and commercial gain. Author and journalist Rosie Kinchen finds out about the work Kew is doing today to examine this, and looks into how the institution is supporting botanical science and conservation around the globe. Rosie speaks to curatorial and scientific staff at Kew, as well as taking a wider view on the role of plants in colonial history.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Whether you call it football or soccer in your part of the world,
0:03.3	Match of the Day Africa Top 10 is the podcast from the BBC World Service
0:07.2	ranking the best African players.
0:08.9	This guy's recognised as the best in the world, teams.
0:11.3	The world will come in turn, boom!
0:13.0	And the biggest moments in African football.
0:14.9	The whole world, remember that?
0:16.4	I remember that yet.
0:17.1	It's not just African, you found.
0:18.5	Match of the Day Africa Top 10.
0:20.2	Find it wherever you get your BBC podcast.
0:24.6	What can a plant on your Windows cell tell you about colonialism?
0:30.2	I'm Rosie Kinchin.
0:31.3	I'm an author and journalist and for many years,
0:33.4	I've loved visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens at Q in Southwest London.
0:37.8	Recently though, I was given access to a part of Q I've never been to before.
0:42.4	So the famous iconic seedling is this?
0:47.8	Is it Robert?
0:49.2	It is a Robby seed.
0:50.2	Yeah, Robby seed.
0:51.2	A bottle with a cork stopper in it and two seeds in the bottom.
0:56.9	And there's a very old fashioned label saying
	...

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