Michael Kunz, North Carolina Botanical Garden Populations of rare plants can fail to produce enough, or any, seed to support reintroduction efforts. This is particularly true for rapidly declining or recently extirpated species or populations. One solution to this problem is to increase the number of seeds through ex situ propagation and seed collection. Amaranthus pumilus is a federally endangered […]
Heather Schneider, Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens There are times when drying and storing seeds is not an option for the conservation of a plant species. This might be because the seeds cannot survive the freezing process, or maybe because the species no longer produces seeds in the wild. Researchers at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden have […]
Germination Testing Program Cheryl Birker, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden The California Seed Bank at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden has a germination testing program to monitor the viability of its many conservation seed collections. Germination tests are conducted on all incoming seed collections before they are placed in freezer storage, and for all rare […]