 The botanist George Claridge Druce called the society “the Botanical Nursery” because it nurtured potential botanists.Among its members were Noel Sandwith, curator at Kew Gardens, who first discovered "Scorzonera humilis", or viper's grass, growing in Britain, botanist Eleanor Vachell who discovered "Limosella aquatica x subulata" in Glamorgan, and Gertrude Foggitt who recorded "Carex microglochin" on Ben Lawers, along with the botanist Lady Joanna Charlotte Davy.More recently, the botanist and ecologist Ghillean Prance, president of the society, is someone who first built up a knowledge of flowering plants through his membership of the society and his wild flower diary.