With the promise of travel, adventure and the chance to follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, applications have opened for what might be the best job in the natural world: an expedition botanist to go on plant-collecting adventures for Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
It is understood to be the first time such a post has been offered by a British botanic garden in modern history. “It’s very unusual – there was no template for this,” said Samuel Brockington, professor of evolutionary biology and curator at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden (CUBG).
Expeditions will be the main focus of the role, which pays up to £44,263 a year. Applicants are expected to be keen botanists with a relevant undergraduate degree, a passion for travel, an intrepid spirit – and the ability to identify a new or interesting plant species growing in the wild.
“So many people love the opportunity to travel, and see different landscapes and experience different cultures, and the world of botany is a fantastic lens to do that through,” said Brockington.
It is an opportunity to observe how plants change around the world, he said, and offers keen taxonomic experts the chance to do vital plant conservation work and assist in the curation of CUBG’s living collection of about 8,000 plant species. “So many plant species are threatened with extinction. By going out, sampling seeds, recording these plants and bringing them back into collections and seed banks, you’re doing really important work.”
Although it is the first time CUBG has offered such a role, in 1831 its founder, Prof John Stevens Henslow, recommended his former student, 22-year-old Charles Darwin, for the post of gentleman naturalist aboard HMS Beagle. Darwin then faithfully posted more than 1,000 plant specimens back to his old tutor, to help him build the Cambridge botanical museum collection.
While Henslow, a natural theologian, was gathering new and varied plant species from around the world to demonstrate the infinite extent of God’s creation, today CUBG is trying to protect the diversity of its cutting-edge collection and respond to the climate emergency.
In July 2019, the garden officially recorded what was then the highest ever UK temperature – 38.7C – and then, just three years later, saw the temperature reach 39.9C as a new UK record of 40.3C was set in Lincolnshire. “As good as our horticulturists are, quite a lot of plants don’t make it year on year, and so we sustain the diversity of the collection by bringing in about 500 to 1,000 batches of plants a year,” said Brockington. “A lot of our current thinking is around how can we do this in a more sustainable way, by bringing in plants that it makes sense to grow in our environment.”
The successful applicant will be tasked with leading expeditions to gather data about the exact locations of new and biologically interesting plants growing in the wild, while simultaneously collecting seeds and cuttings that will enable the 40-acre botanic garden to preserve living specimens of these species for posterity.
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“We’re mostly focusing on temperate hotspots in regions which are extremely diverse – central Asia, the Balkans, South Africa and South America – and thinking about what we can bring back and grow here in Cambridge. So we’re looking at areas in the world where the climate matches where we are now, or where we might be with climate change in the future,” Brockington said.
Ideally, applicants will be multilingual and have a “phenomenal knowledge of all the different plants”, rather than specialising in one in particular. He or she will also need to enjoy the camaraderie of working in a team and be happy to camp in the wilderness, for example in Kyrgyzstan, for a month at a time.
“Field trips are really intense and incredibly hard work because you’ve got a limited amount of time out in these locations,” Brockington said. “I think you’ve got to have a real sense of adventure, to love travel and be comfortable working in different cultures.”
