A NEW exhibition which promises to reveal the hidden world of plants has opened.

Secret Structures – inside the story of plants and fungi – will be at The Millennium Seed Bank Atrium at Wakehurst Place, near Haywards Heath, until Spring 2018.

Curators have promised a glimpse into the inner working of plants to help us understand them in order to better protect them.

Among the exhibits is an interactive digital table from which you can view plants like never before.

Using CT scans, you can peel back the layers of the likes of Brazil nuts, oaks and orchids to reveal their inner workings.

One of the exhibitions highlights is said to be the oak display.

The tree, known as the King of the Forest, supports more biodiversity than any other of our UK native tree species.

The exhibiton promises to take visitors closer than ever before, revealing the oak’s secrets from the top of the canopy to the tips of the roots.

There is also a display dedicated to walnuts.

The exhibition reveals the origin of the old saying that you should never sleep beneath the shade of a walnut tree. Scientists have discovered it secretes chemicals to poison nearby plants.

Wakehurst’s artist in residence for Secret Structures, Perdita Sinclair, will also explore the science of seed dispersal.

Her artwork will take the form of a light sculptures depicting the windborne dust-like orchid seed.

For more than 50 years the Wakehurst estate has been cared for and developed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The grounds are home to thousands of varieties of plants and has the national collection of Betula (birches), Hypericum, Nothofagus (Southern Hemisphere beeches) and many other trees.

Wakehurst is also home to the Millennium Seed Bank which opened in 2000.

It is the world’s largest collection of seeds and aims to conserve 25 per cent of the world’s plant species by 2020.

Admission to the Secret Structures exhibition is included with entry to Wakehurst. For details visit kew.org/visit-wakehurst.