Kew Gardens (Royal Botanic Gardens)

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in Richmond, southwest London, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the world's foremost botanical garden, holding the most diverse plant and fungal collection on Earth: over 50,000 living plants across 326 acres. The gardens were established in 1759 when Augusta, Princess of Wales, created a small botanical garden at Kew Palace, and expanded under the directorship of Sir Joseph Banks, who introduced specimens from the voyages of Captain Cook. Today the gardens combine their scientific role — Kew's Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst in Sussex holds seeds from over 40,000 wild plant species — with outstanding landscape and architectural heritage. The Palm House, built 1844–1848 by Decimus Burton and Richard Turner, is the finest surviving example of a 19th-century curvilinear iron and glass glasshouse, housing tropical plants including breadfruit, rubber, and coconut palm. The Temperate House, also by Decimus Burton and completed in 1868 (reopened 2018 after a major restoration), is the world's largest surviving Victorian glasshouse at 4,880 square metres, housing a 200-year-old Chilean wine palm — the largest greenhouse plant in the world. The Treetop Walkway rises 18 metres above the forest floor, passing through the canopy of a chestnut and oak woodland. The Japanese Pagoda, built in 1762 by William Chambers, anchors the southern end of the garden. The Princess of Wales Conservatory (1987) maintains ten climate zones from arid desert to moist tropical, showcasing cacti, orchids, and carnivorous plants. The Great Broad Walk Borders (spectacular mixed herbaceous planting running 300 metres) are at their peak from June to October.