Mark Griffiths has held a lifelong interest in orchids; in early childhood he came under the tutelage of the legendary orchid grower Peter McKenzie Black. After Magdalen College, Oxford he moved next to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, until his appointment, aged twenty-five, as Editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. Since then, he has written several books and has received the Garden Writers' Guild Special Award for a Work of Outstanding Excellence. Mark Griffiths also contributes articles and papers to numerous journals and, since 2000, has been Horticultural Correspondent of The Times and editorial consultant of The Orchid Review, the world's longest-running publication devoted to orchids. He sits on various committees of the Royal Horticultural Society and is a Fellow and Council Member of the Linnean Society. The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804. In the process of sending collectors around the world in search of new floral species, it has built an unrivalled collection of artworks and rare books covering five centuries of plant history. Today the Society's Lindley Library is considered one of the world's finest horticultural archives, containing more than 25,000 paintings, illustrations and books.