The Plant Hunters

Explore the discoveries of the world’s greatest botanical explorers with this interactive book – The Plant Hunters tells the story of our obsession with plants, both for their beauty and economic potential – beautifully illustrated with art and memorabilia from the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 


Just like its print version, this is no ordinary book - interactive pages bring historic documents from Kew’s archives to life, with video and audio transcriptions of letters, notebooks and diaries, stunning botanical illustrations, historic maps and botanical specimens that can be enlarged to see fine details in all their glory. 


From the Ancient Egyptians to the journeys of exploration by the Spanish and Portuguese in the 16th century, the search for spices in the East, 17th century tulipomania, to the discoveries of Australia and the Americas, the reader is taken on a journey, revealing how plants were moved across the world, how discoveries both cost and helped to save lives, and how, even today, hundreds of new species of plants are still being discovered. 


Compelling stories weave us through time, telling of breadfruit and the Bounty, the East India Company and opium wars, tea from China to India, the cost of sugar, the path of rubber, a Victorian passion for orchids, to the modern day conservation of precious plants, the impact of our changing climate and the world’s largest seed bank.