Millennium Seed Bank blog

It’s early days yet, but not too soon to start planning this year’s Great Seed Swap event at Wakehurst. Our inaugural seed swap was held in September last year and was a great success. As well as hosting a talk by the inspiring James Wong on little-used vegetable varieties, and a Gardener’s Question Time session led by Matthew Biggs, we had demonstrations and tours given by our experts at Wakehurst.

James Wong and Matthew Biggs outside the Millennium Seed Bank at the Great Seed Swap, 2011

A successful first seed swap

The Millennium Seed Bank exhibition room was filled with gardeners, happily swapping seeds with the help of the campaign group Seedy Sunday. The national growing charity Garden Organic were also there, supplying interesting vegetable varieties through their Heritage Seed Library stall. Visitors were able to browse other stalls selling local produce, unusual seeds, and giving out information on local sustainability groups and campaigns. We also had a chef who prepared delicious meals from heritage vegetables that had been grown in the Wakehurst nursery.

The food diversity message

These seed swap events are designed to show people the incredible diversity of plant varieties that can be grown at home for food, and to encourage gardeners and horticulturalists to use as wide a range of plants as possible by exchanging seeds.

Rachael Davies, Processing Assistant at the Millennium Seed Bank, showing visitors how to process seeds on the seed swap stall

Early bookings for 2012

So, for this year’s seed swap we’ve started to get in touch with some of our friends from last year: those who supported our first seed swap and are keen to come back again.

• Thomas Etty esq., a supplier of heritage seeds and bulbs, will have a stall selling seed packets and gift boxes.
• Beans and Herbs will be selling seeds collected from different parts of the world, many of which are rare heirloom varieties with a fascinating history.
• Transition Horsham will attend, with information about their community group which is committed to building a network of flexibility and resilience in the face of the challenges of climate change and peak oil.
• The Rustic Mushroom Company will be selling woodland mushrooms and home-growing kits, and will even give demonstrations showing how to inoculate logs with mushroom spawn.
• Growers of rare plants, Edulis, will have unusual edible plants and vegetables, fruit trees and shrubs, as well as autumn perennials.
• And the Mid Sussex Wood Recycling Project will join us again, with their fantastic range of garden furniture made from recycled timber, by an environmentally responsible, not-for-profit social enterprise.

Packets of seeds from Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library at the Great Seed Swap, 2011

This gives you a taster of what to expect on Saturday 20 October 2012. Watch this space to find out who will be coming to give talks on the day, and to discover other activities and stalls that will be included in the programme.

- Vanessa -
 

Related Links

• The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership
• Garden Organic and the Heritage Seed Library
• Seedy Sunday - Brighton and Hove based seed swap and campaign group

Seed of the Month - Ravenala madagascariensis

The most amazing blue seeds I have ever come across belong to the Malagasy traveller’s tree (Ravenala madagascariensis). 
 

Malagasy traveller’s tree (left) and a single seed (right)

If blue is such a rare colour among seeds, there must be a good reason why the Malagasy traveller’s tree seeds have evolved such an exotic colour. The reason behind it is a fascinating example of the tightly interwoven natural history of plants and animals.

The Malagasy traveller’s tree is a close relative of the bird-of-paradise (Strelitzia reginae) from South Africa and the very similar big palulu (Phenakospermum guianense) from South America.
 

Fruits of Malagasy traveller’s tree (left) and  big palulu (right)  (Images: Wolfgang Stuppy © RBG Kew)

Attracting animals

All three species belong to the Strelitziaceae family and all three produce seeds with edible appendages to attract animals for their dispersal. However, whilst the edible appendage of the seeds of Strelitzia and Phenakospermum has the appearance of a bright orange-red ‘wig’, the seeds of Ravenala are wrapped in an intensely blue, soft, wax-paper like appendage.

The red and black colour scheme is typical of, and very common in, bird-dispersed fruits and seeds whereas blue is extremely rare indeed.
 

 Bird-of-paradise flower (left) and its seeds (right) (Images: Wolfgang Stuppy © RBG Kew)

So why are they blue?

Clearly, there must be a reason why Ravenala, geographically isolated in Madagascar, has evolved seeds with an intensely blue rather than red appendage.

The answer lies in the very special fauna of the island. There are not many fruit and seed eating birds in Madagascar so some plants have entered co-adaptive relationships with other animals to achieve the dispersal of their seeds. One such alternative are the lemurs, a diverse group of primates endemic to Madagascar.

Seeds of  Ravenala madagascariensis (left) and a ring-tailed lemur from Madagascar (right)

And here comes the interesting fact...

Prosimians (‘half-apes’) such as lemurs and lorises (a related group of ‘half-apes’ found in Asia), have dichromatic vision and can only differentiate shades of blue and green but not red - whereas birds have very similar colour-vision to humans. So the shaggy red ‘wigs’ of the seeds of the bird-of-paradise flower would be wasted on the lemurs of Madagascar.

- Wolfgang -
 

Related Links 

• The Millennium Seed Bank partners in Madagascar
• Kew's Madagascar science team
• Orchids from Madagascar
• Expedition to Madagascar  
• Image gallery of seeds and fruit

My name is David Hickmott and I am a member of the Seed Conservation Department at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst.

Part of my job involves training our partners in seed banking practices and seed collecting all around the world. So far I have been involved in four expeditions to both Texas and California in the USA, Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and most recently, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

Making a collection of Asteraceae on a dangerous cliff edge!

The Dominican Republic is a country of contrasts

It has both the highest peak and the lowest point in the Caribbean, and the distance between modern urban street life in Santo Domingo and the very basic rural villages only a short drive away.

During my 18 day trip I was based at the Jardin Botanical Garden in the country's capital Santo Domingo. Here they have magnificent gardens and also the beginnings of a native seed bank which I was there to give technical and procedural support to as well as help with some extensive seed collecting.

The first week of my visit saw us travel the length of the island from top to bottom. Travelling with two experienced local botanists and a colleague from Kew, Tiziana Ulian, we made 39 seed collections of targeted threatened and useful plant species. Towards the north of the Island, near the border of Haiti, the terrain gets quite mountainous. 

View from Monte Cristi at the North West corner of the Dominican Republic.

Collecting seeds

When seed collecting we firstly have to make sure our targeted plants are producing healthy seeds. This can be done by performing a cut test to look at the quality and maturity of the seed. If the seeds are ready to be harvested we ideally try to collect from at least 50 individual plants and make a collection of up to 20,000 seeds!

We also collected seeds from many different palm species which was very difficult as you can imagine as the seeds can be over 15 feet in the air!

Teodoro Clase harvesting palm seeds using an extendable lopper.

At the end of our first week we drove back to Santo Domingo with our truck full of seeds. The staff at Jardin Botanic Garden got to work straight away removing seeds from wet fruits and starting to dry the collections.

The following week we traveled to the coast on the north of the island, again making another 20 collections and staying in some very basic and ‘interesting’ hotels!

We do not normally bring back the collected seeds with us to the UK. The seeds I collected were fully cleaned by the staff at the gardens and also dried in silica gel barrels to ensure the longevity of the collected species. They were then shipped to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank in West Sussex for long term storage and extensive research.

It's hard work!

It is rare that you get much time off on such collecting trips, there’s so much to pack in! Working 12 hour days in 90 degree heat takes its toll so I added on two days annual leave at the end of my trip. I used this time to explore an amazing small island just off the coast and got some much needed relaxation time!

- David -
 

Find out more...

• National Botanic Gardens of the Dominican republic
• Kew's project in the Dominican Republic
• Find out more about collecting seeds
• The Useful Plants Project - saving plants used by communities

Today I have headed into the freezer to discover more about 'love-in-a-puff'. 

Heart detail on seeds of Cardiospermum halicacabum (Image: Ellen Woods)

There are over 2 billion seeds from more than 30,000 plant species stored in the vaults at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank. I went to the depths of this underground freezer to find one of the 17 collections of Cardiospermum halicacabum.

Over the last ten years we have received collections of this species sent in from Venezuela, Burkina Faso, Mali, Texas and Turks & Caicos. The plant has many medicinal properties and has been used in the treatment of rheumatism, eczema, ear ache, nervous diseases, stiffness of the limbs and swelling, to name but a few.

Flowers and fruits of Cardiospermum halicacabum (Image: Wolfgang Stuppy) 

Originating from Tropical America Cardiospermum halicacabum is a scrambling deciduous vine growing up to 3 m long. It is not the flowers that are showy but rather the inflated seed capsules, which give it the common name 'balloon vine'.

The capsules have three compartments, each one containing a single black spherical seed. The seed is fixed to its compartment by a small attachment, and as this loving attachment breaks, it leaves a white heart shaped scar.

The name is a Latinization of the Greek: kardia meaning heart, and sperma meaning seed.

 Jars from the vault containing Cardiospermum halicacabum seeds (Image: Gemma Toothill)

And this plant has other names as well. Cardiospermum halicacabum with its wonderful lantern-like balloon fruits and its seeds scarred with hearts is also romantically referred to as ‘love-in-a-puff’.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

- Gemma -

Related Links

• The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership
• Storing Seeds at Kew's  Millennium Seed Bank
• Cardiospermum halicacabum as used by traditional healers in India
• Project MGU - the Useful Plants Project