Today, we had a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes at Kew Gardens to see their Herbarium ("London Fire Brigade's biggest fire hazard in the Greater London area").
Having been up to the reading room in the new wing, and marvelled at how it appeared Benedict Cumberbatch had been manufactured purely with a view to playing Joseph Hooker, we headed to the older wings.
Each of those cupboards is stacked up with papers and specimens:
The specimens are arranged in shelves:
And the curators are going to be moving many of the specimens before cleaning the old wing and replacing their material in APG III order.
We were specifically told not to touch anything, but Hubster and I are dying to know what this is all about:
Any ideas?
Having been up to the reading room in the new wing, and marvelled at how it appeared Benedict Cumberbatch had been manufactured purely with a view to playing Joseph Hooker, we headed to the older wings.
Each of those cupboards is stacked up with papers and specimens:
The specimens are arranged in shelves:
And the curators are going to be moving many of the specimens before cleaning the old wing and replacing their material in APG III order.
We were specifically told not to touch anything, but Hubster and I are dying to know what this is all about:
Any ideas?
So lucky and cool you guys managed to do this :)
ReplyDeleteI do wonder what's inside that blue file...
"London Fire Brigade's biggest fire hazard in the Greater London area". They wish. Have they got a building full of alcohol next door?
ReplyDeleteI went on that tour a few years back. Awesome isn't it!
Ah yes, Dave, but your building full of alcohol hasn't contained that alcohol in combustible cupboards!
ReplyDeleteI expect you will be able to reclaim the crown once Kew move everything to metal storage cabinets...
And it is an excellent tour. Delightfully few children on it too. ;)
I used to arrange volunteer weekends in the Herbarium - cataloguing the fern part of the collection onto a shiny new database. We saw specimen's collected by Darwin :)
ReplyDeleteI do apologise about that stray apostrophe :(
ReplyDeleteBTW - I'm really enjoying your other blog. I wish we'd had you teaching us A Level biology (mumble mumble) years ago - you're coming up with really thought provoking and stretching stuff :)