The collection comprises diaries, notebooks, correspondence, photographs, slides, negatives, and articles relating to Sykes’ 1952 and 1954 expeditions to Nepal, organised by the British Museum and the Royal Horticultural Society. Also includes slides, correspondence, articles, maps, and other material from the 1980s to 2018.

Note on slides and photographs: slides are labelled on the mount (except for metal mounts) with details of date, locale, a descriptive caption, and, sometimes, elevation. Sykes’s handwritten notes (in pocket preceding each group of slides) supply more details. Photographs are labelled on the verso with details of date, locale, a descriptive caption, and, sometimes, elevation.

Aside from the expected botanical images and mountain views and scenery, the subjects of Sykes’s slides and photographs are wide-ranging, including villages and villagers, village houses, street scenes, bazaars, markets, festivals, porters, camp sites, camp activities, nomadic people, Hindu and Buddhist temples, shrines, monks, nuns, and monasteries, Buddhist statues, plant processing, seed drying, animals, cultivation and crops, activities such as wool processing, making ropes and mats, spinning and weaving, and brick making.

Census information for Nepal, 1900. Annotations made in red pen to correct the spelling of certain indigenous groups.

12 black and white photographs that appear to have once been the property of Frederick Orpen Bower, four of them being used as figures in his 1925 publication 'Plants and Man'. The photographers appear to be mainly Skeen and Scowen of the Colombo Apothecaries Co. Ltd, Ceylon [Sri Lanka].
Descriptions of the photographs are as follows:

• Peradeniya Gardens; ‘No. 20’; marked ‘Frontispiece’ with annotated instructions for reproduction in ‘Plants and Man’ by Bower; photo credited in the publication as being ‘Bases of the stems of the Giant Bamboo (Dendrocalamus), in Peradeniya Gardens, Ceylon, with a garden-coolie standing at their foot. Photograph by Mr. Skene.’ [Skeen]. Photograph glued to contemporary stiff board.
• Corypha umbraculifera (Talipot); marked with C.A. Co. (?) Ceylon and stamped with [Apothe]caries Co. Photographers, [Colombo,] Ceylon; ‘218’ glued to reverse; annotated with printing instructions; edited version used as Fig.22A (p.48) in ‘Plants and Man’ as ‘A Talipot Palm (Corypha umbaculifera) in the flowering state’; photograph credited to Mr Skene [Skeen]. Photograph glued to contemporary stiff board.
• Corypha umbraculifera. The last stage of the Talipot; marked with ‘& Co. Ceylon’ - name obscured, and stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; edited version used as Fig.22B (p.49) in ‘Plants and man’ as ‘The same Palm after fruiting. The photographs were taken by Mr. Skene [Skeen], Ceylon.’ Photograph glued to herbarium sheet.
• Bamboo Stems; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; ‘217’ glued to reverse, annotated with printing instructions; edited version used as Fig.86 (p.215) in ‘Plants and man’ as ‘Photograph showing the Bases of Bamboo Stems which may grow over 100 feet high. The stems are marked by rings, each of which is a leaf insertion, and the hollow stem is there supported by a hard transverse plate or septum. Note that at the base, where the leverage will be greatest, the septa are nearest together, so that the resistance will be greatest there. One of the young conical shoots has been cut so as to show the septa, crowded before the shoot has elongated.’ No photography credit given.
• ‘Nos 19 and 20, Giant Bamboos’; this photo marked ‘No.19’; ‘219’ glued to reverse; annotated with printing instructions, including ‘Schimper, make block from this, not from book’; used as Fig.87 (p.217) in ‘Plants and man’ as ‘Group of Giant Bamboos (Dendrocalamus giganteus) in the Royal Botanic Garden, Peradeniya, Ceylon. Note the man at the foot of the clump which gives the scale : also the successively shorter internodes at the base of the stems, and the curvatures above. (After Schimper.) Compare Frontispiece, and Fig. 86’. Photograph glued to contemporary stiff board.
• Corypha umbraculifera; young Talipot palms, No.519; marked with C.A. Co. Ltd, Ceylon, but other letters seem to have been scored out; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet.
• Caryota urens (Kitul) 144; marked with C.A. Co. Ltd, Ceylon; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet.
• Caryota urens. Branches of the Influorescense of the Kitul Palm shewing development of fruit. marked with Scowen & Co. Ltd (almost scored out), Ceylon; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet.
• Oreodoxa regia; Avenue of Cabbage Palms, Peradeniya Gardens; further annotated with ‘Cabbage Palms, Peradeniya Gardens (Scowen); marked with Scowen & Co. Ltd? (scored out), Ceylon; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet
• Cocos nucifera; Cocoa-nut Palm, 143; marked with C.A. Co. Ltd, Ceylon; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet.
• Lodoicea seychellarum – Double Cocoa-nut Palm, 125; marked with Scowen & Co. But scored out so it reads C.A. Co. Ltd; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet.
• Ravenala madagascariensis (Traveller’s Palm) 557?; marked with Scowen & Co. But scored out so it reads C.A. Co. Ltd, Ceylon; stamped with ‘Botanical Department, University Glasgow.’ and ‘Apothecaries Co. Photographers, Colombo, Ceylon’; photograph glued to herbarium sheet.

Eight boxes of material relating to Roland Edgar Cooper who was Curator (Head Gardener) at the Royal Botanic Garden between 1934 and 1950. Material consists of correspondence, field notes, photographs and maps from his plant collecting expeditions in Sikkim, Bhutan and Punjab between 1913 and 1916, and family / genealogical information.

Farrer correspondence (41 letters in 1 folder) relating to Farrer and Cox's expedition to Burma [Myanmar] between 1919 and 1920.
1 folder, including correspondence to and from Reginald Farrer, Isaac Bayley Balfour and S.R. Fasoms(?),Linoel de Rothschild and E. L'Estrange P. Thompson.

A collection of 21 letters donated to the RBGE Archives in 2017, written by Reginald Farrer and sent to Lady Celia Brunel Noble.

Two folders relating to Farrer's second expedition to Upper Burma between 1919 and 1920 and his death there. Correspondence is mainly between Farrer and William Wright Smith, Deputy Regius Keeper at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, but also Isaac Bayley Balfour, Lionel de Rothschild, S.R. Fasoms, and post Farrer's death, Claude Barton of the Ingleborough Estate Office, Colonel Stephenson Clarke, Euan H.M. Cox, H.M. Farrer of Farrer and Co. solicitors [dealing with Farrer's estate] and Farrer's mother, Bessie requesting coloured paintings of Gentiana farreri and Lilium farreri so that glass windows may be made up for the church in Clapham.
There are also seed and plant lists, identifications and distribution lists to subscribers [though no list of subscribers was found].

This box comprises mainly correspondence to and from Reginald Farrer and Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (1888-1922) but there is also correspondence to/from Sir/Colonel David Prain, Arthur W. Hill, W.R. Dykes, George Redman of the Craven Nursery, and Edward Arnold.

Folder of mainly copy letters from Reginald Farrer to Euan H.M. Cox dating between February and September 1920, some typed transcripts, all copied by Cox's son Peter in 1987, alongside associated correspondence between Peter Cox and D.M. Henderson, then Regius Keeper at RBGE, arranging to have the letters copied and stored at RBGE.