PUBLIC PLACES
likelihood of extremely hot weather,” he says. “It is vital that we duplicate collections around the world, so we work with our partner countries to ensure safe, secure storage.”
The approximate cost of producing a “decent quality seed collection” is surprisingly low - “about £2,000,” Keith reveals. “The average seed collection holds around 33,000 seeds, specimens varying in size from a tenth of a millimetre, to large examples measuring many centimetres from trees, and are stored in hermetically sealed, completely moisture-proof containers within large freezers at minus 20O
C, after
scrupulously cleaning and drying them. “The MSB collections are valued between £100m and £200m, after factoring in full costs of developing them, but they are priceless to humanity, Keith stresses. The prized assets seem safe enough though, as the Kew storage vault is built to last at least 500 years.
“The destruction of plant habitats is happening so fast that it is not always possible to conserve plants within threatened habitats. “Collecting seeds and
preserving them away from their natural habitat offers an economical and effective way to save seeds and keep them for posterity,” states Kew. “They can later be germinated and reintroduced to the wild or used in research, if required.” In 2009, Britain became the first nation to store its botanical heritage, when Kew completed its mission to preserve seeds from the UK’s 1,400 native plant species. But the UK is species poor in some senses, Keith notes. “Although we are about the size of Tasmania, they have more than three times the number we do.” In 2010, Kew met its goal of banking 10% of the world’s flora, targeting areas where species are in most threat of extinction - rainforests, arid lands, tropical and pine forests - and is “well on the way” to its 2020 vision, Kew states.
Seeds of so-called ‘recalcitrant’ species cannot be dried and therefore banked. Overall, nine in every 100 species are thought to be recalcitrant, however that proportion rises to at least one in two among tree and shrub species in tropical moist forests where their typically large seeds
tend to sprout as soon as they touch the ground.
Accordingly, Kew plans a large-scale cryogenic storage facility - the Kew Cryosphere Centre of Excellence - to deliver methods to store such specimens. Currently, they are stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 196O
C, pending development of the facility.
Kew’s plant specialists go to the ends of the earth to retrieve recalcitrant seeds from endangered species. In 2009, they collected specimens from the last remaining coastal population of monkey puzzle trees from their foothold on remote, Chilean clifftops. Inaccessible by foot, the scientists flew in by helicopter to retrieve their ‘treasure’. On the parterre outside the building rest raised beds that evoke eight threatened habitats of the British Isles - shingle beach, chalk cliff, chalk downland and meadow (all to be found between the south coats and Wakehurst), marsh and fenland, hills and mountains, heathland and cornfield. Seeds from these habitats are stored in the Millennium Seed Bank.
Seeds of success
• The MSB has banked 39,161 species from 189 countries
• The vaults hold 87,962 collections, on average two representatives of each species
• The UK was the first nation to bank seeds from its entire native species
• ‘Orthodox’ seeds are stored at 15% relative humidity and minus 20O
C.
• Mission to bank seeds from 25% of the world’s species by 2020
118 PC August/September 2018
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