NSW's rarest Banksia doing the three-step

Media release: 24 November 2016

A three-step insurance plan to save Australia’s rarest Banksia ramps-up after ten plants have been returned to the wild at Vincentia in the Shoalhaven.

Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) Threatened Species Officer Dr David Bain said the trial planting of ten propagated Banksia vincentia plants, close to the only wild population, is a priority action to save this endangered species.

“The trial planting will provide a better understanding of planting techniques; the survival of different genotypes and the susceptibility of the reintroduced plants to known pathogens,” said Dr Bain.

“This project is a partnership approach led by the Office of Environment and Heritage, with vital support from the Australian Botanic Garden at Mount Annan, Booderee Botanic Gardens, Australian National Botanic Gardens and Wollongong Botanic Gardens.

“This project, a three-step insurance plan for the Banksia, includes the establishment of an ex-situ insurance population, the trial planting and important seed collection which will ultimately lead to the reintroduction of large numbers of plants into the wild.

“An important goal in saving Banksia vincentia is almost complete, with cuttings now in the hands of experts at a number of botanic gardens across NSW creating an important insurance population.

“Cuttings have been distributed to Booderee Botanic Gardens, Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra and Wollongong Botanic Gardens,” said Dr Bain.

Australian Botanic Gardens Curator Manager John Siemon said staff from the Australian PlantBank at the Australian Botanic Garden are part of this project and they successfully collected six hundred seeds from Banksia vincentia’s wild population earlier this year.

“Six hundred seeds is very low but a vitally important collection to save this endangered Banksia. As a comparison, a seed collection from a non-threatened species normally results in about ten thousand to fifty thousand seeds,” Mr Siemon said.

“Half of the 600 seeds have been shipped to the Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England as part of our risk mitigation strategy.

“At the Australian Botanic Garden, we are also germinating some of the seeds and twenty-four seedlings have now progressed to our Nursery.”

Dr Bain said we now have plant cuttings and seeds of Banksia vincentia across southeast NSW and even as far afield as the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England creating a strong three-step insurance plan.
“The challenge of saving Banksia vincentia is an investment by the NSW Government’s Saving Our Species program which aims to protect almost a thousand animals and plants at risk of extinction, for the next 100 years in the wild,” Dr Bain said.

To learn more about Banksia vincentia visit: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspecies

Photos for media: NSW's rarest banksia 

Video for media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfzXmhXuNR4&feature=youtu.be

Contact: Angela Read