futures❵KEW GARDENS
the time to be the largest overseas grant awarded by the American Orchid Society. Science is all about effective communication, and actually meeting and discussing your work is vital to any progress. Contacts and networks are so important to establish, as combining complimentary skills and resources are essential to effective research and especially to fund-raising. Tim did his fair share of this between 1984 and 2004, meeting many people around the world and visiting places as far apart as St Louis in Missouri and Auckland in New Zealand, and lots of Europe in between. This can be formalised in lab work and conferences, but Tim well remembers sitting in a bar in Amsterdam at 2am still talking about....well, something to do with science. Phil’s orchid travels began quite late on in life, attending his first international orchid workshop in Holland in 1987. The Dutch organiser was fluent in Dutch, German, French, English and a little Spanish. Phil was ashamed. As he was determined to visit Latin America, he began Spanish evening classes soon after his return to the UK. Phil was becoming increasingly interested in orchid conservation, and when a well- known orchid researcher wrote that it was no use
Chloraea magellanica cueva del Milodon
waiting for someone to fund your foreign travels, if you were truly committed you would fund yourself, Phil decided he couldn’t delay visiting the tropics any longer. He visited Costa Rica for the first time in 1995. In 2000 he was awarded a nine week travel grant to study the ex situ conservation of orchids in Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
Funding research is always an issue. In 2004 this ran out for Tim, and he was made redundant. Following a diversion into secondary science teaching, which was an educational experience for all concerned, he joined the Research section of the Seed Conservation Department at Wakehurst Place in 2006. This was his first experience of orchids, the sheer numbers involved, and the amazing people associated with them. Tim and Phil first met in a pub close to RBG Kew to discuss a project with Hugh Pritchard. The project took off in 2007 with money from Defra’s Darwin Initiative under the banner of ‘Orchid Seed Stores for Sustainable Use’ (
www.osssu.org). Tim’s role in this has been lab based working on aspects of seed viability, germination and storage protocols with undergraduate and Masters students. He also has a PhD student based in Jordan doing more field-based work, and is collaborating with others in the OSSSU project world- wide.
Phil has been writing popular and scientific articles about a wide range of orchid issues and has become well-known in the global orchid community. His good communication skills and extensive contacts have been invaluable for his role as OSSSU project co-ordinator and he has travelled extensively in Latin America and Asia co-ordinating workshops and speaking about the project. It is also true that he would not have been able to carry out his orchid work for OSSSU without being passably fluent in Spanish. Tim also has other roles at Kew. Another research
project focuses on palms; thus working with both the smallest and largest seeds on the planet. He also oversees the undergraduate recruitment programme in the MSB. So from benefiting from the Hatfield sandwich course all those years ago, he is now helping other undergraduates take their first steps on a research career.
What does the future hold for Tim and Phil? Anyone
Students watching meristem techniques at Quito Botanical Garden
who remembers Phil from Hatfield will know that he loved art. Those were the days of general studies, and he has fond memories of taking life drawing classes as a nervous teenager at St Albans College of Art. Of course he is now approaching retirement age. He will continue working with his friends at Wakehurst as an Honorary Research Associate, but also intends to spend time painting and writing and illustrating orchid books. Tim continues to balance working in the lab, supervising students, writing papers and proposals, training people, emailing (imagine life without it!). He has no plans to be bored in the immediate future. f❵
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