The vast collections in the Kew Herbarium include a wealth of herbarium specimens of tree species. Additionally, two-thirds of the Kew site, is an arboretum. Living collections and herbarium specimens act as a source of information, to determine what the plants look like and what morphological and chemical variation occurs, inter alia. Microscopic examination and identification of vegetative plant material, especially woods, is done for a wide range of enquirers including UK Border Force, BEIS, Police, Medics and vets, timber traders, antique dealers, furniture restorers etc. Many publications on wood identification and systematic wood anatomy, some concentrating on CITES woods, Dalbergia etc., have been written at Kew. Kew is actively improving its timber reference collections with geo-referenced, botanically named samples of commercial timber species. The Microscope Slide collection at Kew enables it to fulfil its responsibilities to Defra, providing expert identification of timber entering the UK. In 2012, following the closure of government forensic service laboratories, many microscope slides of wood were donated to Kew by the Metropolitan Police Forensic Service and have been incorporated into our slide collection. Currently there are over 150,000 slides in the collection.
Anglais