The Australian Institute of Botanical Science (The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust) is working with Saving our Species to create a collection of threatened seeds, providing an insurance policy against the extinction of native plants in the wild.
The collection is stored at the Institute’s award-winning Australian PlantBank at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan. Over 1300 threatened species seed collections have been made from across NSW, with 63% of the state’s threatened flora now safely held at the Australian PlantBank.
Operating out of the Institute’s Australian PlantBank facility, the seed collecting team and scientists are working with SoS to locate and scale up seed collections from high priority threatened plants across NSW.
As many of these plants are highly restricted and under threat from climate change, bush fires and habitat destruction, a key objective is to collect seed from multiple populations and maximise genetic diversity. The plant material can then be used for future conservation actions, such as establishing or strengthening new populations.