Kew seed bank has 10% of all plants 鈥� and counting

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The Millennium Seed Bank has reached its initial target of collecting 10 per cent of the world's known wild plant species

15 October 2009

Banking the world's seeds — Banking the world鈥檚 seeds
(Image: David Stock)

This x-ray is of a Granite Homoranthus (Homoranthus prolixus) seed, an endangered species native to Australia. X-ray images are important to the conservation work at Wakehurst as they give an indication of the quality of the seed specimens
(Image: Kew)

Interactive image: explore Kew鈥檚 seed bank bunker

IT鈥橲 pink, grows in China, and wild Asian elephants love it. The Yunnan banana (Musa iterans) is also the 24,200th wild plant species banked by the Kew Millennium Seed Bank Partnership. It marks the point at which the bank has reached its initial target of collecting 10 per cent of the world鈥檚 known wild plant species.

Set up in 2000, the seed bank in , Sussex, UK, is the world鈥檚 largest for wild plants. The idea is that the seeds can all be accessed in one place to help researchers hunt for potential medicinal species and crops resilient to climate change.

鈥淭he seed bank will help in the hunt for potential medicinal species or crops resilient to climate change鈥�

鈥淲e have every reason to be proud, but there鈥檚 much left to be done,鈥� says Paul Smith, head of the partnership. Its next target is to have banked one-quarter of the world鈥檚 wild species by 2020.

The other large collection is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, which collects crops to preserve them in case of disease.

Topics: Climate change / Conservation

午夜福利1000集合

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