Meet our trip scholar: Gina Fullerlove
Gina Fullerlove, Honorary Research Associate at Kew and Fellow of the Linnean Society, is our trip scholar for Spice, Trade and Botanicals — Histories along the Malabar Coast.
From botanical science to South Asian cultural history, her expertise brings tour destinations vividly to life.
We asked her to share her interests, research, and highlights.
What surprised you the most on last year's Malabar tour?
Strangely, how much I learned on our bus journeys travelling between the various places we visited. Observing the incredible, changing landscapes and biodiversity as we travelled from Mysore up into the Nilgiri highlands down to the Tamil Nadu plains, then back over the Western Ghats and finally to the wetlands of Cochin.
So much about the natural, economic and cultural history of South India was revealed. Along the way we caught glimpses of weddings, religious rituals, and other cultural happenings, with the background to these brilliantly explained by our national guide, Charlie.
A dahlia at the botanical garden at Ooty
Where are you most excited to return to?
I think it has to be Ooty to see ‘Upstream Ecology’ a plant nursery run by Vasanth Bosco who has started the first shola grassland and holistic ecosystem restoration effort on the Nilgiri Plateau, growing and reintroducing native plants, which are used by local tribal peoples.
So much of indigenous flora was lost in colonial times and post-independence, swept away by intensive agriculture, not least plantations of cinchona, tea and non-native trees. This is small project with great ambitions.
The view from the train to Ooty
Do you have any behind the scenes secrets you can reveal from your 23-year stint at Kew Gardens?
Kew has many! The tunnels running underneath the Palm House built in Victorian times that were used to transport coal to heat the glasshouse boilers and carry away the smoke to the campanile tower are said to be haunted. Sir Joseph Hooker, Kew Gardens director from 1865-85, was infamous for his stern, uncompromising attitude that Kew should be a place of scientific learning rather than a pleasure park but had a lighter side - in older age he had very long, bushy eyebrows, which he used to put into his mouth to make his grandchildren laugh. Joseph Hooker was best friend to Charles Darwin and sent him bananas grown in the Kew hothouses, especially appreciated because Darwin was banned from eating sugar by his doctor. Darwin wrote to Hooker ‘You have not only rejoiced my soul, but my stomach, for the bananas are simply delicious’.
What's in your garden?
I have a very small London garden, dominated by a large cherry tree! I’m a keen cook, so food plants feature, including herbs, soft fruit and rhubarb.
You can describe me more of a plantsman than a gardener, and I like to encourage wildlife so the beds are not closely manicured and are self-seeding. I like to be guided by what grows well.
Why can't I miss this tour?
I love this tour because its sum is greater than its parts. There are special visits, for example the Ayurvedic pharmacy in Mysore, family run, making Ayurvedic preparations to Sanskrit formulations.
There is always something new to learn, the local tour guides we meet are excellent, as is our national guide Charlie, and the guests themselves have interesting insights along the way.
I also enjoy drinking gin and tonic in Ooty, where cinchona plants, the source of quinine, were first introduced to India from Kew.
Lalbagh Botanical Garden in Bangalore
What's the best botanical garden you've ever been to (after Kew of course)?
Lalbagh Botanical Garden in Bangalore. It has an incredible history beginning in 1537 as a flower garden, becoming a Sultan’s ‘charbagh’, then from 1800 a colonial garden, expanding and taking on a role as an agri-horticultural laboratory of regional and national importance. It has been described as the ‘Kew of India’ and Bangalore became known as the ‘Garden City’.
Today Lalbagh is an oasis from which to escape from urban life. The plants and trees are labelled as in all good botanic gardens, there are magnificent trees and a huge glasshouse, originally erected in 1889.
Can you share your favourite fun botanical fact? Perhaps from the Malabar tour?
Hyder Ali, Sultan and ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1761-82 grew the climbing prickly shrub Caesalpinia sepiaria or Mysore thorne to cover his fortifications, using the plant as a defensive structure.
It is an invasive plant with very strong decurved thorns and was first described in European scientific literature by William Roxburgh, the ‘father of Indian botany’ who was in South India from 1776 to 1793. In West Africa the plant has also been used in primate conservation to dissuade apes from entering farmland. It is now known as Biancaea decapetala.
The Cardamom Hills
There was a wonderful variety of visits, both botanical and cultural, greatly enhanced by the knowledge and expertise of the tour guides and national guides.
Victoria (traveller on Spice, Trade and Botanicals — Histories along the Malabar Coast, January 2026)
Gina and Charlie worked very well together and made an excellent team. You could not have created a better leadership pairing!
Liz (traveller on Spice, Trade and Botanicals — Histories along the Malabar Coast, January 2026)