A Bank For China's Wild Plants

摘要

A new seed bank, occupying vaults under China's Kunming Institute of Botany, opened this week in Yunnan Province. The Southwest China Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, a joint project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the U.K.'s Kew Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP), will preserve seeds from some 4000 species of endemic Chinese plants, including many threatened species. This is especially important for Southwestern China, which is "increasingly under threat from agricultural and industrial development," says Hugh Pritchard, head of research at MSBP.