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Kew's Chelsea Flower Show Stand 2005
Message in a Bottle - conserving botanical diversity
Message in a Bottle, the exhibit by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew at the 2005 Chelsea Flower Show, presents a plea for help from threatened island plants – both species from remote oceanic islands and those isolated within continents by their geographical setting. Horticulturists, botanists and other plant conservationists are responding to this plea and developing techniques to rescue the most threatened species before they vanish completely.
Only one wild café marron tree survives on its home island of Rodrigues. Kew’s horticulturists recently made a major breakthrough when they managed to pollinate its flowers so that it produced seed. Easter Island’s toromiro tree is extinct in the wild and there are just a few trees in botanic gardens around the world. Kew’s conservation geneticists are advising on breeding programmes to protect the species’ remaining genetic diversity. Australia’s Wollemi pine is the most recently discovered species but probably the oldest on the exhibit, surviving since the time of the dinosaurs. Only 100 have ever been found, growing in an isolated canyon. Commercially propagated Wollemi pines will be sold to raise funds to conserve the wild trees.
For more information follow these links:
Mayday, mayday
Search and rescueFeatured species:
Café marron Ramosmania rodriguesii
St Helena ebony Trochetiopsis ebenus
Toromiro Sophora toromiro
Cabbage tree Dendroseris litoralis
Poke-me-boy Acacia anegadenis
Wollemi pine Wollemia nobilisFind out more:
Press release
Millennium Seed Bank
Wollemi Australia PTY Ltd
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service
UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum
Royal Horticultural Society