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Full circle: Prance is returning to research on the botany of the Amazon, where his career began.

After more than a decade at the helm of one of the world's best-known botanic gardens, Sir Ghillean Prance, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in southwest London, is calling it a day and returning to research.

Prance has spent his professional life at just two institutions — 25 years at the New York Botanical Garden, which he joined as a research assistant after completing his PhD in 1963, and the following 11 years at Kew. But when he closes the door to his office for the last time next month, Prance will leave behind a different place from the institution he took over in 1988.

Kew Gardens, once an almost entirely state-funded institution, now gets 35 per cent of its income from commercial activities and private sponsorship. It is also overseeing the construction of an £82-million (US$132-million) building to house seeds from 25,000 plant species — the Millennium Seed Bank.

In addition, thanks to a strong lead from Prance, Kew is an active participant in the revolution that is sweeping taxonomy, in which flowering plants are classified according to their DNA sequence rather than their physical features. Kew's scientists, meanwhile, are compiling a database of the gene sequences of the gardens' entire plant collection.

Germ of an idea: the completed Millennium Seed Bank will house many of the world's seeds.

The database will be available online and will be free to the public. One aim of the database and the Millennium Seed Bank is to return plants to countries that have lost them through extinction or conflict, says Prance.

Prance likes to think that these changes will be his most noteworthy achievements. He is particularly proud of Kew's involvement in DNA-based plant classification, which initially generated considerable opposition among Kew's scientists and trustees.

Traditional botanists were — and remain — concerned that such a scheme could threaten the future of their discipline. But initial studies at Kew have shown that such concerns are misplaced, says Prance.

“The number of surprises identified by genetic studies is an indication that even more emphasis should be placed on traditional areas of taxonomic research,” says Mark Chase, a senior scientist at Kew.

For example, genetic studies have shown that mustards (Brassicaceae) are close to the papaya family (Caricaceae), even though physically they are different. Understanding the nature of such similarities calls for traditional botanical expertise, says Prance.

In addition to its research functions, Kew Gardens is one of Britain's leading visitor attractions. Each year between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people walk through its gardens and trademark giant glasshouses.

Prance's tenure has seen all Kew's major buildings restored, new buildings erected for research, and the reopening of a museum showing how communities all over the world rely on plants. Prance has also guided Kew's public-awareness programme.

Prance says that Kew's public role is as important as its research. This is partly because gate receipts amount to 10 per cent of the gardens' income, but also because of the heightened importance of biodiversity conservation in public policy following the signing of the United Nations Biodiversity Convention in 1992.

The convention has in many ways allowed Kew to exorcise one of the less glorious aspects of its past: its role in exploiting the botany of Britain's colonial territories.

Prance says that the convention guarantees that never again will Kew's scientists travel the world collecting plants with economic potential without permission from the local authorities. Brazil's ambassador to London “never fails to remind me how Britain took seeds from Brazil to develop its rubber industry in Malaysia,” he says.

Prance adds that Kew, along with the majority of the world's botanic gardens, now refuses to collaborate with any government or commercial organization that does not work within the biodiversity convention. Kew's lawyers are advising governments on developing legislation concerning access to biological resources.

But Prance is less forthcoming about a more recent controversy: that of the risks to biodiversity from genetically modified agriculture. Unlike conservation bodies such as the UK government's wildlife advisory agency English Nature, Kew Gardens has not added its voice to calls for delays to commercial planting of genetically modified crops.

To some, Kew's reluctance to do so reflects its increasing links with business, as well as its reliance on gene technology in plant classification. In addition to its growing private-sector sponsorship, Kew's scientists collaborate with the pharmaceutical industry on research into medicinal plants.

Prance says that, although Kew has no intention of producing genetically modified plants, he does not oppose the technology, and believes it has much to offer. He considers UK regulation to be adequate.

Prance will be 62 in July, but has no immediate plans to retire. He intends to return to the science that launched his career more than three decades ago: the botany of the Amazon, which he will pursue under a fellowship at the University of Reading.