Bodnant Garden gives ‘dinosaur trees’ a Welsh home-from-home as part of new ‘metacollection’ to protect Wollemi pine from extinction - National Trust
The National Trust’s Bodnant Garden in North Wales, is joining together with Forestry England to plant critically endangered Wollemi pine trees as part of the first global ‘metacollection’ to save the iconic species from extinction and help protect the biodiversity of wild trees.
Growing the trees worldwide in this way preserves the widest range of genetic diversity found in the wild population and aims to safeguard Wollemi pines from becoming extinct.
Recent advances in genetic techniques have enabled Australian plant science and conservation experts to identify and breed genetically diverse Wollemi pines. For the first time, these genetically diverse collections of saplings are being made available to botanic gardens across the world.
More than 170 young Wollemi pine trees were grown by Botanic Gardens of Sydney and shipped from Australia, with the first six planted at Bedgebury National Pinetum at the end of October. The remaining trees are being distributed to gardens across the UK and Europe, including Bodnant.
It was thought they had become extinct between 70 and 90 million years ago until a chance discovery in 1994, when a small group of living trees was found growing in a remote gorge in the Wollemi National Park in New South Wales.
This moment is considered one of the greatest botanical discoveries of our time. The tree species is now classified as critically endangered on the IUCN's red list, an important indicator of the world’s biodiversity which sets out the risks of extinction for plant and animal species.
Posted On: 04/12/2023
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