I have been wandering London in search of hidden gems and recently enjoyed the (pictured above). Established by a society of apothecaries in the 17th century to grow medicinal and otherwise useful plants, its walled garden brims with botanical curiosities, including familiar faces such as the opium poppy and willow tree.
More obscure varieties also merit a mention, if only for their names. My favourites are the hardy succulent known as old father live forever, and an unassuming but highly toxic shrub called the poison devil’s pepper.
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At home and on my commute, I trade botany for disease ecology in the form of . Here, epidemiologists Erin Allmann Updyke and Erin Welsh neatly balance eye-opening first-hand accounts and their own fastidious research with a healthy dose of fun and humour. Each episode also includes a themed cocktail, but I wouldn’t blame you for giving the cholera-inspired “rice-water stool” a miss.
Tom Leslie
Subeditor
London
