Barry Stone

The late 1700s was the Golden Age of Botany. By the 1780s 'botanising' had grown into global big business as the seafaring nations of the era amassed encyclopaedic collections of seeds and plants from around the world for propagation and study. In England the great explorer and botanist Joseph Banks, who had accompaied Captain James Cook on his voyages through the South Pacific in the 1770s, was put in charge of the new botanical garden in Kew, often used by King George III as a retreat from the intrigues of London's Royal Court.