Gardens of Empire: The Role of Kew and Colonial Botanic Gardens

Sydney’s botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire. Such plans had varying degrees of success, leaving botanists to question why specific plants would only grow in particular places. 

This lecture looks at how Kew addressed such questions, and the tensions between its role in the advancement of science, and as a public park.