Kew Gardens’ plants of Empire must return to ‘country of origin’, says botanist

Kew Gardens should return plants taken from former British colonies during the days of the Empire, a botanist has claimed. Prof Muthama Muasya from the University of Cape Town, who has discovered more than 100 new plant species, said Kew should return plant specimens if it could not handle “the weight of custodianship”. Prof Muasya said some of Kew’s seven-million-strong collection are no longer available in their countries of origin, including species that are now extinct. Prof Muasya told The Times: “My issue is that Kew management need to most strongly acknowledge that the collection at Kew most represents material from the rest of the world, a very small proportion being British flora, and there is a component of those materials which are perhaps more precious to the countries of origin and need to be accessible to those people.” He added: “The reason that Kew is holding on to them is that they have a value now, an intangible value, and a value for tomorrow.