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Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to Far and Wide.

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This time we're going be on the podcast in here, the university's fantastic Botanic Garden and Arboretum.

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And I'm delighted to be here with Dr. Chris Thorogood, who is the deputy director and is also head of science at this incredible garden.

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We're looking at Britain's oldest botanic garden.

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So founded in 1621, it was built up by, I think, 4000 wagon loads of muck and dung by the university scavenger.

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So the plants grow very well, right? Good, good.

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And it was particularly to grow medicinal plants to teach the university's medical students about how plants were used in herbal medicine.

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Somebody who's still teaching the medical students about pain and grief and different ways that we can do that.

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I am all ears to hear more about it. Yeah. Wonderful.

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So we're standing here in the taxonomic beds and we have a collection of some 5000 or so different types of plant from all around the world.

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And that's what's so wonderful about a university botanic garden. And this collection of plants serves a vital role in in research.

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And so we have researchers sort of using these taxonomic beds as a living DNA library, if you will, of plants and also students.

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And we teach in the Botanic Garden as well. So it's actually come down.

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They do and they do. And so we run practicals here in the Botanic Garden with the biology students who who can actually

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sort of walk through the the flowering plant family tree and so learned through that experience.

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Oh how extraordinary what a truly immersive oh what and you can't beat that immersive sort of learning experience

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now can you give us just sort of a quick summary and simple explanation of what you mean by taxonomy?

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Because obviously a key part of the garden originally these beds were organised by how the plants appeared,

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so plants that looked like one another were classified together.

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But actually over the last few decades, scientists have sequenced the DNA of these plants.

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And so we now know more than ever before about how these plants are related.

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And so the team here is reorganised the beds according to their genetic relatedness.

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And so you can walk through the DNA sort of family tree, if you will, of flowering plants, and you can see how plants are related to one another.

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I mean, that's that's the wonderful thing about a botanic garden. And of course, that brings in the evolution and of the plant somewhere.

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This place is fantastic. Well, look, show me some more. Please.

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Follow me. Lovely to see so many people as well.

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Yes, but actually not to visit during the summer holiday. It's been lovely for us to income, but yeah, it's quite gentle on the daylight.

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Yeah. Yeah. So, Irene, we should stop here so I can show you our oldest living specimen.

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Oh, wow. It ain't. Oh, it's in English.

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You tax us back after. And it was planted in 1645 by a man called Jacob Bobo, the elder who was the Botanic Gardens first keeper.

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And so he planted up the garden in 1640, and he would have planted this yew tree, along with several others, probably along this main path.

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And it may have been clipped actually as part of a topiary display.

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And perhaps that's one of the reasons it's a little smaller than you might expect for a tree of this age.

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And we also lost some of it in Storm Cara. But new trees are very easily regenerated, and so it's actually recovered quite well.

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20, 60, 45. I mean, it's just jaw dropping. Trees are my sort of favourite.

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Oh, lovely. I just love the majesty of them and the fact that they live for hundreds of years, you know, particularly this particular time.

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It's actually just just the history they've seen. Exactly. Sort of this this garden is it's changed through sort of the conditions,

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along with Oxford a lot alongside it and the things that it's that it's seen over the course of several centuries.

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Yes, exactly. Now, there's a certain sort of resonance, a whisper of of of time in the Botanic Garden when you walk among trees like these.

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And we hope it will see several hundred years still. Well, let's hope. And probably time enough for us to walk to the next area.

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So follow me. Right.

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Okay. So we're in a very different bit of the garden cress and also quite a bit different looking for a garden green.

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So we were in the the walled physic garden, as was the historic garden.

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We've entered the lower garden, so it's a lot less formal. Yep.

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And we're standing at the moment in our rock garden, which has a mediterranean theme.

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It really does. And I love fish. It does. It does. It's really evocative.

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And that's exactly what we wanted to achieve, to give people that experience,

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to walk through a gallery or a marquee, as we call it, vegetation type, those lovely oils utilised from the plants.

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Certainly the smells. Absolutely. Yeah. I just feel like I'm in the Mediterranean.

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A little mini break, not of the middle left city centre or the high street.

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We have. Fantastic, great. And there's something special you want to show me as well as I read The Sun.

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Yeah. I think bracing myself for this. Come on. So my no risk assessment.

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Oh, I got a photo of it at my office. Yeah, exactly. We had Raymond Blanc here and he started eating well, so.

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Right. No, no. So let me introduce you the squirting cucumber.

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You're kidding. This is a this is actually a relative of the cucumber that we're familiar with, but this is not an edible one, okay?

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And it's actually explosive. So this is the the little missile waiting to explode.

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And so this capsule has a build up entirely of trigger pressure.

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So water build up in inside the capsule. And what this does is it fires the seeds out in a jets that's quite explosive and quite disturbing.

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So I'm going to try and direct it away from us. Okay. And are we ready?

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Yeah, I'm ready. Ready? Go for it. Oh, gee.

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Wow. That was spectacular. Well, why? Why does it do it now?

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You know, that's one of the questions we're actually seeking to understand.

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I mean, so we've done all sorts of things with these squirting cucumbers from C.T.,

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scanning them to mathematically modelling them to answer those questions.

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How and why are these plants the way they are? How how? With a mathematician, where's the math?

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If this cucumber fires its seeds over the course of, let's say, nine metres,

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and if those seeds grow and certain numbers survive, what would that look like in future generations?

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And then we can start to understand, well,

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what might be the selective advantage in terms of evolution for these fruits exploding their seeds in a sort of linear transect,

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if you like, of several metres?

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And it might be that that's to get the future generations of plants away from the parent plant to reduce competition, for example.

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So it makes such sense. And I explained, I thought, okay, I got to have a go.

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Is that, is that can I please to give it a gentle touch? And it should we go?

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Oh, wow. We got it. Yeah, I know.

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Spectacular. Very sensitive. So it'll just spontaneously do that.

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Yeah, it does. At some point when it will do it of its own accord, when it reaches a sort of a certain threshold.

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But otherwise, if you touch it, then it does it early. So, you know, it was it was impressive.

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Okay, let's get somewhere safe. Yeah, at any rate.

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Thanks, Chris. That was terrific. That's a good one. That's a good one.

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So, Chris, you brought me to this bit. Now I can hear some kids playing rugby in the background there, which is lovely to hear.

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We've got birds squawking and twittering away. I'm looking at probably foxes most spectacular border.

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Tell me why you wanted to show me this. Happy to hear you say that already.

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So. So we're standing. We still in the low regard and we standing next to the herbaceous border.

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And it's I love it because it just changes so much with the seasons. So if you come here in the spring, you'll see all the bulbs flowering.

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And then in September, it's just this sort of riot of colour and everything sort of jostling for space, jostling for position.

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And I think it's a real spectacle. And you know,

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we have 200,000 or so people come to the Botanic Garden Arboretum every year and they they love seeing this this border and walking past.

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And I think more than that, more than people loving to see it.

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I think it's actually really an important part of Oxford Green Estates, the Botanic Garden and the people find sanctuary here.

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And and it's an important part of people's mental health and wellbeing.

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Coming to green spaces like this couldn't agree more. I mean, I think we saw that during the pandemic.

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People just really sought out, didn't they? Getting into parks, having, I think, an appreciation again of just the value they did and they did.

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And we saw that and we saw people actually have quite an emotional response when they came back to the arboretum in particular,

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actually a really, really strong connection with the site.

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Yeah, I know that you're doing some collaboration with some of my colleagues, you know, as a neuroscientist and things.

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So tell me a little bit more about the sort of programmes you do in there. Yeah.

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So we work closely with Professor John Geddes and his team on the flourishing theme of his biomedical research centre projects,

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particularly seeking to understand we talk about the benefits that green spaces in nature bring to mental health, brain health and wellbeing.

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But how do we how do we understand what that looks like?

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What is a dose of green health, for example? And so we're very much looking forward to working with John and his colleagues to use

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these green spaces as as sort of living laboratories for seeking to understand that.

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So that's a really exciting piece of work and get some sort of data, you know, evidence exactly how we can then roll back that evidence base quite.

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And then also link to that, we're doing a lot of work engaging with new audiences and underrepresented groups at both our sites as well,

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so that as many people as possible can benefit from what green spaces like ours have to offer.

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Fantastic. On a 200,000 businesses, you said that's just heart warming for me to hear, because as you know,

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I'm really passionate about our role in the local community and the national.

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And again, having this extraordinary privilege sets the places that we've got and we get

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the chance to look after and curate available for more people to come and see.

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So it's just wonderful. It's a privilege. Yeah. Fantastic. Wow. And we're seeing it on its best.

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You say September is is the sort of it's it's a little past.

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Just a little over. A little. Okay. Okay. And it's been a difficult summer, but it's still looking fine.

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Yeah. No complaints are really great.

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So we got. Yeah, well, so, Chris, we're in the boiling glasshouse.

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Sweltering. It's like a sauna. I want to hear about your research.

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You've told us about the amazing collaborations you're doing with psychiatry and with maths,

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but I know that you've got a very particular interest in your research area, so let's hear about your work and tell us why we're in here.

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Thanks. I mean, well, I work with Boston, so all over the world,

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but I'm going to tell you about a particular set of projects that I've been working on quite recently,

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broadly under the subject of Biomimetics, which is how we can look at nature for solutions to problems in design and technology, for example.

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And I start with a little story. So we have in front of us these botanical enigmas, as I think you have these extraordinary floating platforms.

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So these are the world's largest floating leaves. They belong to the genus Victoria, and these are actually quite small.

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In the middle of the summer, they are even growing larger. So it's a giant Amazonian waterlily And my physicist friends,

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I was showing them on this pond and they said to me, Chris, how long do these leaves grow so large?

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And I said, Oh, well, you know, leaves it for photosynthesis. The larger the surface area, better it serves the plants.

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But they said, well, you know, but not all these great that large. And so I thought, well this is curious how why do these leaves grow so large?

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And so we did a bit of research and to our astonishment, no one had actually sought to answer that question.

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How and why do these water lilies grow so large?

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And so we set about to to address that, and we did all sorts of experiments to look at the load bearing capacity,

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the strength, the elasticity and all sorts of other things.

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So we were prodding them, sinking them, pulverising them, weighing them.

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And what we found is that the the structure of this enormous leaf, right, is what defines its strength and ability and ability to grow so large.

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And so you can see one that the team here flipped over.

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So you see the underside you see So that's the underside, right? Oh, that's it's pretty robust.

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Yeah. And it has this this extraordinary lattice of sort of intersecting girders, if you like, and then those are covered in a very thin.

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Sort of elastic sheets. And actually what we found, again, through mathematical modelling is that for this size, the optimum is this structure.

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In other words, it's the minimum amount of stuff that you can formulate to cover the largest amount of surface area

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and still be strong enough to withstand any sort of perturbations or stresses in your environment.

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And of course, there's a cost to growing such a large because you have to service your real estate.

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It requires plumbing and maintenance. And so that's that's what we found.

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So this is an economically very efficient structure.

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And why we think that's exciting is that that might be a source of inspiration for, for example, floating offshore solar farms.

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So we're very excited about that. And then as we're standing here, this is another well, picture plant.

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So, yeah, no, that was actually fascinating. Yeah. So wait, why are you into them?

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You know, I've always loved these plants ever since I was a kid. And so I feel so lucky to be able to actually work in them now here in Oxford.

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But we're interested in why particular these slippery rims that insects tumble off of and fall into this stomach, if you will.

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How why are they such different shapes and sizes, the different geometries?

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And so my my clever colleagues have done all sorts of mathematical modelling, too,

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to look at computational insects and how they behave on different parts of that structure.

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And what we found in our recent research is that the different geometries of these periosteum,

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as they're called on the trap, have a profound impact on the size of the type of prey that these plants can attract.

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And so when we think of, for example,

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Darwin's finches in the Galapagos Islands and they have different beak shapes that are adapted to tapping into different sources of food.

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So with plants such as these, they have different shapes and sizes of trap.

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So if if I can ask you to feel the surface and you feel it's rough in one plane and smooth in another was silky and lovely.

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So it's covered in these ridges that you can think of as energy railings.

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Might my physicist colleagues call them? And these actually direct insects into the trap in a way that's not arbitrary.

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So they're slipping in a way that's very tightly controlled. They sort of driven into the trap.

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And this also has an application in microfluidics and a former technology called slip slippery,

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liquid infused poor surface technology slips, which is used in all sorts of everyday objects.

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And so microfluidics are used in medical devices and also inkjet printers.

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And this can be informed by these wonderful adaptive surfaces in picture paths.

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Well, of course, plants have had millions of years of evolution and to fine tune exactly how they do things.

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So, you know, we often think that we know everything,

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but there's so much amazing stuff that we just need to keep learning from plants so much we can learn from it.

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Right. You know, I can't help but observe the glass houses.

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Look. You know, they look old and they look like they need a bit more TLC,

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or we need to just really radically improve the working conditions that you have here.

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So tell me about the ambition for that and how can we help?

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Yeah, So that's that's our big priority here at the Botanic Garden is to fundraise for new glasshouses.

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So just as you say, I mean, the the beautiful though the plants are that are grown in size,

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the infrastructure itself is beyond its sort of use by date, to be honest.

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So the glass, as it were, built in the early 1970s, and they're not really in some places fit for purpose now.

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And so it's it's vital that to achieve this mission of inspiring people with the scientific wonder plants and

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growing these wonderful things to support research and education that we have the infrastructure to support that.

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So that's our our priority here is, is to actually build new glass houses to enable us to do that and actually done so.

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I should add that it will reduce our carbon footprint by 92% if we have new glass houses because these are linked online.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because energy isn't pouring out. Exactly. So it's very important for us.

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Okay, well, that's that's a great challenge. So notice. So, Chris, we're getting to sort of what I call 10:00 time of the evening.

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I'm smelling juniper. I'm seeing these beautiful roses. I know that you make something very special here with the botanicals.

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Tell me about it. So we're sitting in the gin, but actually, I say my favourite go to place.

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So? So we actually have a partnership with Oxford Office and Distillery who harvest Botanicals from the Botanic Garden to make physic gin.

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And the list of botanicals is actually inspired by that original list of plants that were grown here in the Botanic Garden in 1648.

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So it's a little bit like drinking history. So it's a very special gin. It's also our blockbuster product in the Botanic Garden shop as well.

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So it's what does that say? Commercial income. Yeah, about our businesses.

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But, you know, commercial income is important to Botanic Garden.

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And we also develop for example, we're sitting next to this lovely rose, which I know you just pointed out, which is Oxford Physic Rose,

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which was also developed by us in partnership with a rose breeder as well, and launched at the Chelsea Flower Show last year as well.

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And it's it's beautiful, isn't it? And that was to celebrate the 400th anniversary.

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It's a beautiful rose. It's up to 11. It looks pretty resilient to.

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Yes, I understand it. Yes. Special things that affect roses.

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Yeah. So, Chris, before I have them, my gin and tonic this evening.

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You know, why should a university like Oxford have a botanic garden?

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Tell us why it's so important to have places like this. Plants are actually the answer to many of the global challenges that we face.

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Plants are the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the medicines we take.

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And yet we live in an era when many people actually scarcely notice the plants or don't engage with them.

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So we as human beings, as animals, are very much attuned to other animals and in our world, less so plants actually.

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And this is a phenomenon that social scientists have called metaphorically plant blindness.

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We're simply less attuned to seeing them in the environments around us.

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And that's worrying at a time when two in five of the world's plant species are now threatened with extinction.

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So we need to care about plants. You know, they are fundamental to our existence.

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They're under threat. So it's never been more important. And our mission is to engage people with the scientific wonder of plants.

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That's what we're truly passionate about. Well, you're doing a fantastic job of it.

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And and again, the platform we have is, you know, one of the world's big universities to also champion and speak about the work that you're doing.

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Be assured we'll do everything we can and I will to support it. So all I can say is thank you so much for spending this time.

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It's been a real treat for me to get out and just have this afternoon wish you all the very best with the research and the teaching that you're doing.

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I can't wait to bring some of the medical students down to again, show them some of the pain relieving medicines in the physic garden.

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And and I say it's time for that gin and tonic. Absolutely.