2-889-346 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Museum in the Royal Botanic Gardens, at Kew, [in London], 1850. 'The objects are exhibited in cases fixed to the walls, and in a double row in the centre, all ticketed in plain language...of a character to interest the least educated person; and consisting...of the raw and manufactured produce of the vegetable kingdom...Among the specimens are...cotton in all its stages of perfection; flax, from the rude stem to its manufacture into the most costly fabrics...native cloths from New Zealand, China, Ceylon, the Sandwich Islands, and some of very delicate...design, made of grasses, palm fibres, and paper mulberry; India-rubber and gutta percha...teas, of which many varieties are almost unknown in Europe; coffee, sugar, spices, gums, resins, drugs, and woods for dyeing; seeds, leaves, and roots used in medicine...Various sea-weeds, used as food, both in savage and civilized life...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.