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About the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership
Find out how we aim to store seed from 25% of the world's plants by 2020
Saving seed for our future
Read how the MSBP undertake expeditions to identify and collect seeds for conservation
Adopt a seed, save a species
For £25 you can adopt a seed, for £1,000 you can save an entire plant species!

Introducing the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is the largest ex situ plant conservation project in the world. Our focus is on global plant life faced with the threat of extinction and plants of most use for the future. The seeds we save are conserved outside their native habitat.

Working with our network of partners across 50 countries, we have successfully banked 10% of the world's wild plant species. With your help, we are going to save 25% by 2020. We target plants and regions most at risk from climate change and the ever-increasing impact of human activities.

Get involved - Adopt a Seed, Save a Species | Find out more about us | Read our blog

Latest news

The sadistic dispersal strategy of the puncture vine

by: Wolfgang Stuppy, Millennium Seed Bank blog
08 May 2012
In his third 'Seed of the Month' blog series, Wolfgang Stuppy warns us of the 'dangerous' seeds of Tribulus terrestris.

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Behind-the-scenes of the Jodrell

by: Jean Helliwell, Millennium Seed Bank blog
23 Apr 2012
Millennium Seed Bank volunteer Jean Helliwell recounts her recent opportunity to visit the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew.

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Seeds from a lost world - the Texas mountain laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum)

by: Wolfgang Stuppy, Millennium Seed Bank blog
02 Apr 2012
In the second of his ‘Seed of the Month’ series, Wolfgang examines the mystery of why this dull-looking, nut-like fruit contains flashy red seeds.

18 likes
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Collections from the Caribbean

by: David Hickmott, Millennium Seed Bank blog
28 Feb 2012
Follow a Millennium Seed Bank collector on an expedition to the Dominican Republic to save threatened and useful plants.

54 likes
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10% banana - Musa itinerans (Yunnan banana, wild forest banana)

Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership ‘top banana’ as it celebrates banking 10% of the world’s wild plant species.

15 Oct 2009
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is celebrating collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world’s wild plant species by banking its 24,200th plant species.

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Michael Way in the wild flower meadow at Beech Farm

Sowing the seeds of UK biodiversity - Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank launches UK Native Seed Hub

17 Aug 2011
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew launches the UK Native Seed Hub at the Millennium Seed Bank, Wakehurst – an initiative that draws on the Millennium Seed Bank’s extensive collection of UK native seeds, as well as its horticultural and scientific expertise to support the UK seed industry, conservation groups and other organisations working to restore native plants to the UK countryside.

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UK Native Seed Hub

The UK Native seed Hub draws on the Millennium Seed Bank’s extensive collection of UK native seeds, as well as its horticultural and scientific expertise to help restore native plants to the UK countryside. It will initially focus on plants of lowland meadows or semi-natural grassland, but in the future it will support restoration efforts across the full spectrum of UK habitats.