r Mark Spencer reckons that plants are woven into the fibre of his being. “I’ve been obsessed with them since I was a toddler growing up in rural Warwickshire,” he says. “I dream about them and I navigate my way around towns and cities by remembering something that’s growing on a street corner.” Certainly, his every waking hour is spent working with plant material, whether he is advising on invasive species, teaching a class on plant identification, looking after the unique herbarium samples at London’s renowned natural history institute,
