While I have explored quite a number of the noteworthy natural history institutions in Great Britain, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is not one for which I can claim in-person experience just yet. Not that I haven’t been interested in visiting it, mind you – it’s simply my visits to the U.K. generally involve me arriving at Heathrow and from there heading straight into the countryside of Berkshire and points beyond. However after having now begun reading Dr. Kate Teltscher’s “Palace of Palms; Tropical Dreams and the Making of Kew,” recently published by Picador, my interest in seeing it for myself has increased fifty fold.
