My father was a keen gardener who maintained several glasshouses at my family home in Pinner, UK, as well as a nearby allotment for growing vegetables. So, I grew up around plants grown for both decoration and food. Before I was ten I had also developed interests in natural history and like many kids of my age, I went through various phases identifying butterflies, birds and finally plants. Camping holidays in Europe and summer hikes in the Alps exposed me to the excitement of discovering new species I had not seen in the UK. At grammar school my biology teacher, Muriel Hosking, was an inspiration, arranging field courses and often taking a group of us on after-school natural history outings. She also encouraged me to go to university and to apply to botanical programmes. I was fortunate to be accepted at the University of Reading which had especially strong courses in plant systematics and ecology and also agricultural and horticultural botany. By the time I graduated I could see the great virtue of plants for addressing interesting broader questions in ecology and evolution.