CUBG Friends' Events: Behind the Scenes Tour

An opportunity to discover more about the work involved in re-creating and maintaining the Systematic Beds (sometimes called 'Order Beds') which, for centuries, have been used for teaching taxonomy, the science of plant classification. In most botanic gardens, beds are long and rectangular with family following family in order. Our Systematic Beds, designed in 1845 by Andrew Murray, all differ in size and are curving, irregular island beds. They hold an important scientific research collection of about 1600 plant species belonging to about 98 families dispersed across 157 beds.