I THOUGHT we’d share this really interesting article about The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew who has been collecting the tree seeds of Yew, Spindle, Guelder-rose and Holly across sites in Cumbria to ensure their long-term conservation.
With funding from the People’s Postcode Lottery, this is part of Kew’s UK National Tree Seed Project, to collect the seeds of the UK’s native trees and shrubs.
The tree seeds collected will be safely banked in the underground vaults of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, the largest wild plant seed bank in the world, to form the UK’s first national collection of tree seeds.
The team say that once banked, these collections can play a vital role in conservation work to protect UK trees and woodlands.
The collections, and associated data, will be available to researchers working on solutions to tackle the many threats facing our woodlands including those of climate change and pests and diseases such as ash dieback.
To make the seed collections the team from Kew selected specific reserves across Cumbria. They visited woodland near Carlisle for Holly. The Kew scientists prioritise finding target species within ancient woodland, areas that have been consistently wooded since 1600AD; this increases certainty that the trees were not planted and are of local provenance. It is thought that seed from these trees will be best adapted to local conditions in the future.
Ian Willey, Fieldwork Officer for Kew’s UK National Tree Seed Project, says: “The holly collection made near Carlisle, was the final piece of the puzzle for the project meaning we have now banked holly seeds from all target areas across the UK and Northern Ireland.
“We now have 325,000 native holly seeds from every corner of the UK safely stored and protected from any future threats.”
Read more about Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank: https://www.kew.org/science/collections/seed-collection.
