This authoritative, illustrated history of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew traces a remarkable evolution over more than two centuries, from the time of Queen Caroline to the present. This is the first history of Kew to make extensive use of the gardens' archives for its research.Some of England's most distinguished garden designers, including Charles Bridgeman, Capability Brown, and W. A. Nesfield, worked at the gardens, as did such eminent architects as William Kent, Sir William Chambers, James Wyatt, and Decimus Burton. These last added garden features, glasshouses, a pagoda, and a Gothic palace. It is not only in the field of garden design and architecture that Kew has found renown; Ray Desmondoutlines its significant contributions to scientific developments at home and abroad, underscoring Kew's primary objective as "the better management of the Earth's environment by increasing knowledge and understanding of the plant kingdom.