Explorer, botanist and photographer Francis Kingdon-Ward spent his life travelling across Asia, gathering seeds and plant cuttings for esteemed collectors such as the Natural History Museum and Kew gardens. His finds, which ranged from Burmese orchids to Tibetan rhodendrons, also helped to change

Bunches of epiphytic rhododendrons growing on rainforest trees in the Mishmi Hills, Assam, northeast India, in 1928. Epiphytes live on other plants but aren't parasitic. They don't root in soil and obtain their moisture either from the air or from the surface of their host. Rhododendrons have been grown in Britain since the 18th century, but they only became widely known during the 1900s, following the introduction of new species by plant hunters such as Kingdon-Ward; A woman washing clothes on the clothes On the Assam plains. Kingdon-Ward was visiting the region on his way to join a zoological expedition searching for giant pandas. Unfortunately, he fell ill upon his arrival and had to return to England before the expedition began; Kingdon-Ward photographed between 1920 and 1939

Supplies being carried up the supports of a cane bridge spanning the Nam Tamai, Burma, 1930-32. Nam Tamai is the main artery of the Mayhka River, known locally as the 'impossible river because the surrounding land' is so difficult to cultivate; Women pruning tea bushes on a plantation in Darjeeling. This shot was probably taken by Kingdon-Ward in 1943 when, having been dismissed from active military service, he briefly took work on a tea plantation

According to family lore, on his 1928 trip to Burma, Kingdon-Ward cut a rope securing a bridge in the hope of teaching his porters a lesson during a dispute, The porters responded by slashing tents and ransacking the camp until he agreed to pay for a new bridge; Kaw girls going to market, Lao People's Democratic Republic, 1930-39. The Kaw, or Akha, are a hill-tribe whose origins are in China. In recent years, a decline in the practise of swidden--farming land until it's barren, then moving a village to new ground--has meant Kaw settlements have

Turkish prisoners are paraded through the centre of Baghdad, 1917; in addition to plant hunting, on his 1935 expedition to Tibet, Kingdon-Ward set out to map a range of mountains that he'd seen while visiting the region in 1924. He had to petition Ishi Dorji, high lama of Monyul (pictured), for permission to enter the country, and although he was given verbal authorisation, he was also told to put his request into writing. Unable to read Tibetan, when a document arrived shortly after his arrival in the country, he assumed it was formal authorisation. It was only after his return to India that he discovered it was actually a rejection letter; a yak transporting firewood, Adung valley, 1930-32, Burma; Kingdon-Ward took this photograph of a young Jewish girl while posted in Baghdad during the First World War. Having been on an expedition in Burma. he only heard about the war seven weeks after it had broken out; a camp of yak herders at 3,000 metres on a ridge leading up to the main Himalayan mountain range. Monsoon clouds can be seen gathering in background

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