Kew seed stock to create pastures new

Kew Gardens today opened its seed archive to help bring back native meadow land.

Seed producers and conservationists will be able to access stocks for flowers in rapid decline such as cowslip, harebell, bugle and cuckoo flower.

They can then multiply seeds to commercial quantities. Kew estimates that 98per cent of meadow land in Britain has gone since the Thirties.

Michael Way, head of the Millennium Seed Bank collecting team, called the loss unsustainable and said that it would now bow to pressure to use Kew's collections to replace plants.