Lucy Horton, a 3rd year, BSc (Hons) Ecology and Conservation student worked for a year at the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.
During this placement, she worked on the curation of Kew’s carpological collection - a specialist collection of over 53,000 preserved fruits, seeds, roots and tubers that are too large to fit on standard herbarium sheets.
Because this collection is stored separately and is not yet fully digitised, it can be overlooked by researchers. Her role was to help change that.
Lucy's role was to:
- Identify plant families and collection areas needing urgent curatorial attention
- Update botanical names using the latest taxonomic systems
- Reorganise specimens into correct scientific order
- Create clear workflows and mapping systems
- Improve cross-referencing between bulky specimens and herbarium sheets
- Present updates to the Herbarium Curation Team
This was real responsibility, her work directly improves how scientists access and use the collection.
“Working in Kew’s Herbarium has opened up so many new options for career paths and has helped me gain invaluable skills and confidence that I never thought that I would have. I will definitely carry all of this experience forward into my studies and future career.”
Lucy Horton, BSc (Hons) Ecology and Conservation, Year 3
Lucy tells us about her experience
What my days looked like
No two days were the same. Some days I was carefully handling historic specimens and reorganising entire sections of the collection. Other days I was:
- Taking part in weekly “Family Sorts” to identify newly collected specimens
- Learning how herbarium specimens are mounted, stored and preserved
- Asking senior taxonomists questions about plant identification
- Assisting visiting researchers
- Answering external enquiries
- Helping with a public exhibition in the Marianne North Gallery
- Attending CITES training
- Visiting other collections such as the Millennium Seed Bank
At the start, reaching out to staff I’d never met felt intimidating. But I quickly realised everyone was incredibly supportive and genuinely wanted me to learn.
What I learned
Technically, I gained a huge amount of knowledge about:
- Botanical identification to family level
- How plant taxonomy systems (like APG) are applied in practice
- The importance of scientific collections in global conservation
- Best practice for handling and storing historic specimens
But one of my biggest takeaways was professional confidence.
I had to manage my own time, organise a long-term project, communicate across teams, and present updates in meetings. By the end of the year, I felt far more confident speaking to experts and taking ownership of my work.
The impact of my placement
Although I couldn’t complete the entire carpological collection in one year, my placement helped:
- Reorganise and update large sections of the collection
- Create clear workflows for future curation
- Raise awareness of the collection among staff and researchers
- Contribute to a public blog about the project
It felt amazing knowing I’d contributed to improving access to a globally important scientific resource.
How it shaped my future
Before this placement, I didn’t fully realise how many career paths exist within plant conservation and botanical research. There’s so much happening behind the scenes in herbaria and botanical gardens that feeds directly into global biodiversity protection.
This experience opened my eyes to roles in:
- Herbarium and collections curation
- Botanical research
- Scientific data management
- Plant conservation strategy
It’s given me direction, confidence and a much clearer understanding of where I want to go next.
My advice if you're thinking about Ecology and Conservation
If you’re considering studying Ecology and Conservation, placements like this show what’s possible. You’re not just learning in lectures, you could be:
- Working with world-class scientific collections
- Contributing to real conservation research
- Building specialist skills employers value
- Discovering career paths you didn’t know existed
Work-like experience isn’t just something to put on your CV, it can completely shape your future.
About Kew
Kew is much more than a botanic garden. It is a world leader in botanical and mycological science, with a mission to understand and protect plants and fungi worldwide.
The Herbarium at Kew houses approximately 6.4 million preserved plant specimens, making it one of the largest collections in the world. These include flowering plants, ferns, conifers and lycopods, collected from across the globe over hundreds of years.
These specimens help scientists:
- Track how species distributions change over time
- Identify threatened plants
- Study plant morphology and evolution
- Understand habitats and environmental change
- Support international conservation policy
With work-experience at Kew, you won’t just be observing - you’ll be contributing to the care and accessibility of this globally significant scientific resource.
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