Research into a collection could include verifying plant names, historical research or focused scientific inquiry.
This page provides a starting point for those new to plant research.
Research Workshop At RHS Wisley Feb 2017
Plant naming
See the Understanding Plant Names page for an overview of how plants are named.
JSTOR
Holders of National Collections can get free access to JSTOR, which is an online digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. Please contact us for a login.
Online plant databases
For cultivar research, the RHS maintains a database of plants in UK horticulture, which includes availability through the Plant Finder. Many genera have an International Cultivar Registry (ICRA) who maintain a list of all the cultivars registered in that genus. Many historic nursery catalogues have been digitised and can be found via Google Books.
For researching species, Kew Plants of the World is a good, up-to-date reference, though mainly focused on seed-bearing species. World Flora Online aims to be the first online flora for all known plants and includes links to many national floras, but it is still a work in progress. The BGCI maintains a database of plants in botanic gardens around the world.
Online research workshop
Watch this video from an online research workshop in Feb 2023 for an overview of the main plant species databases:
General online research resources
There are many online resources which you may find useful, ranging from scanned archives of old nursery catalogues, to botanical floras from around the world. Click here for a list of online plant research resources compiled by the conservation team as the result of a workshop held in 2023.
This blog post also outlines useful websites for finding plants in UK botanic gardens.
Engelbert Kempfner's 1692 specimen of Aucuba, Natural History Museum
"A plant without a name, or with an unreliable name or a synonym is of little use. A National Collection full of plants with unreliable names and synonyms is a nightmare!"
To read an account of one collection holders research into the plant names of their collection, click here.
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