ABSTRACT
From the age of exploration, researchers and travellers transported discovered plant species back to their own countries as new foods and raw materials for plant breeding. Through expeditions to conquer and subjugate most of the developing countries, agricultural materials were culled and screened for new and useful crops. The Great Columbian exchange brought the tomato to Italian cuisine and introduced the potato to Ireland.1 The UK Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew benefited immeasurably from British travellers and colonialists in South America. Indeed, it has been argued that the majesty of Britain as a colonial power in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was evident in the pre-eminence of the Kew Botanical Gardens.2 At that time, control over plants meant power and wealth. During that epoch, the concept that exotic plant species found in nature were freely accessible to the taker was inaugurated.3
