By Norman Bezona Special to West Hawaii Today
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Today’s column comes to you from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew. We are here for a meeting of the International Palm Society. For those who have not experienced this amazing 500 acre plus garden, it is like the Walt Disney World of horticulture. The gardens date back to the early 18th century as royal palace gardens to today’s globally renowned scientific institution for plant and fungal research. In 1759, Princess Augusta, mother of King George the third, started it all. Today it employs over a thousand people. Kew is London’s largest UNESCO World Heritage site and houses over 50,000 species both native and introduced from all over the world. We are here primarily to study the family of palms.