Botanical Endeavours! Sir Joseph Banks and his legacy

Plants from the Pacific? Tea from China? Peaches and vines to New South Wales? Breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies? Native species and the excitement of newly discovered plants?

This was the world of Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks was at the centre of an empire of botanical discovery, cultivation and exchange. An ambitious and enthusiastic young man, he sailed with Cook on the Endeavour.

He ended as adviser to King George III, directing activities at Kew Gardens, turning it into an international centre for plants and their cultivation.

He encouraged economic uses of plants, helped to found agricultural and horticultural societies, and continued to shape events in the southern Pacific long after his voyage there, even beyond his own lifetime.

With the help of generous loans from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Natural History Museum and others, the 2007 exhibition brought together personal items belonging to Banks - his travelling chair and walking stick made from sugar cane - and explores the legacy of his long and energetic life.