Prof Jonathan Drori CBE is a Trustee of The Eden Project, Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Cambridge Science Centre, and formerly of the Woodland Trust and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He is Honorary Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Birmingham University’s Institute of Forest Research and an Ambassador for the WWF. As a documentary film maker for the BBC he was responsible for more than 50 prime-time science shows and documentaries. His talks on botany and science at ted.com have been viewed millions of times and his books Around the World in 80 Trees and Around the World in 80 Plants are bestsellers in more than twenty languages.

A botanical journey of beauty and botany, myth and mayhem: In this lecture, Jonathan takes you across the globe, bringing to life the science of plants by revealing how their worlds are intricately entwined with our own history, culture and folklore.

His journey includes self-mummyfying monks, entrepreneurial resin diggers and the Venetian navy. It encompasses the seemingly familiar birch, beech and tomato, the exotic moojar, kauri and gutta-percha, and the eerie mandrake and Spanish ‘moss’ of Louisiana.