On Monday 3rd December, we were extremely pleased to welcome Yvette Harvey, the Keeper of the Herbarium of the Royal Horticultural Society, to our school for this week’s Sixth Form Lecture.

Yvette shared with us some exciting stories from her plant collecting expeditions in many African countries; she informed us about how the RHS herbarium specialises in cultivated plant diversity and contains dried plant specimens with their accompanying photographs, paintings, fruits, seeds and collectors’ notes (including some collected by Charles Darwin!); and she explained to us what her role involves.

Yvette’s primary expertise is in herbarium management and for many years she coached this subject, particularly for Kew’s Herbarium Techniques Course, and she is currently working towards revising the ‘Herbarium Handbook’.