This fonds consists of records relating to John King's career as a plant physiologist. The materials include research that he conducted and directed, supervised work of MSc students and Post-Doctoral Fellows, biology lectures, notes, drafts and correspondence relating to his two books The Genetic Basis of Plant Physiological Processes and Reaching for the Sun. There are also copies of articles he authored and a reference collection of articles and indices to articles for research purposes.

This series consists of notes and overheads for John King's Biology 835.3 Genetic Approaches to Plant Physiology course, which was based closely on his book The Genetic Basis of Plant Physiological Processes.

This series consists of offprints authored and co-authored by John King; photographs used in his book The Genetic Basis of Plant Physiological Processes (1991), and correspondence, notes and drafts of Reaching for the Sun (1997).

This series consists of research conducted and directed by John King. It includes the following sub-series: Experiment binders; Other experiments; Cultures; Media; MSc Student and Post doctoral Fellows Research; and Sabbatical work.

This series consists of offprints, photocopies of articles, and two different indices to research articles gathered by John King. The articles have been arranged into general alphabetical order by the last name of the first listed author. One index is to research for The Genetic Basis of Plant Physiological Processes. A second index is related to research for John King's 1990's work on whole plant mutants. The articles referred to in the indices are not in the collection.