About the Author

Ray Desmond was Chief Librarian and Archivist at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and subsequently a Deputy Keeper in the British Library. He is a Vice-President and former Chairman of the Garden History Society and former President of the Society for the History of Natural History which awarded him their Founders Medal. His books on the history of botany and horticulture include Bibliography of British Gardens (1984), A Celebration of Flowers (1987), Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists (1994) and Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker(1999).