Botany

In addition to their day-to-day work in identifying plant material and answering botanical queries, Botany staff are engaged in long-term projects. These usually relate to horticultural taxonomy, which is the identification, classification and naming of cultivated plants.

The methods used in these projects range from traditional morphological studies to newer techniques of molecular fingerprinting and barcoding. The results are published in journals such as The Plantsman and Hanburyana, and are reflected in the RHS Plant Finder.

The RHS provides a Fellowship for one student on the Plant Diversity MSc course at Reading University. The recipient of the Fellowship carries out a three-month research project on a topic of horticultural relevance and is supervised by a member of the Botany Department.

Find out about the projects

As well as engaging in research and working on various publications, Botany staff provide advice to members and the media, and give botanical support throughout the RHS, including Curatorial staff, the Trials Department and RHS plant committees.

Over the course of a year, we can expect to identify several thousand specimens, from a host of different sources – bird seed aliens, unlabelled residents in new gardens, plants in holiday snaps – so it can be quite a challenge.

Although the service is primarily intended for RHS members, we happily give advice to students or to anyone with a question about poisonous plants.

It is also our responsibility to ensure that plants in the four RHS gardens are correctly labelled, and to attempt to resolve the taxonomic riddles highlighted by RHS trials.
We work closely with RHS plant committees and assist judges in assessing exhibits at RHS shows. We can also be found offering botanical advice on the advisory stand at Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace flower shows.