19 May 2008

Botanic Garden reviving native Scottish wildflowers

Photo/interview opportunity: 7 pm, Tuesday May 20th,
Broughty Ferry Nature Reserve, Esplanade.

Efforts by the University of Dundee Botanic Garden and other groups to re-establish rare Scottish wildflowers are resulting this week in the reintroduction of the Scottish Sea Pea at the Garden and at Broughty Ferry.

The Botanic Garden, in association with other gardens including the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, has been working to propagate and grow some of Scotland’s rarest wildflowers.

The native Scottish Sea Pea has become rare on the local coastline but staff at the Botanic Garden have been successful in nurturing plants and are now ready to plant these out.

"Conservation of plant species is one of the important roles of a Botanic Gardens and we are delighted that we have been successful in growing these Sea Peas, working alongside Broughty Ferry Environmental Group," said Alisdair Hood, Curator of the Garden.

"The seed for these plants was collected from a site at a beach in Tayside that is threatened with development. After allowing these to germinate and develop over the past two years we now have a healthy batch of young Peas to plant out both here at the Botanic Garden and at the nature reserve in Broughty Ferry."

Scottish Sea Peas have pretty purple flowers and have adapted to beach life by developing deep and tenacious roots. However, the plants do need particular conditions in order to survive and prosper.

There is already a large woodland area at the Botanic Garden which houses many wild flowers. This year the Garden staff plan to collect seed from the Angus glens as part of their ongoing conservation work.

The Broughty Ferry Environmental Group plan to continue to add locally grown wildflowers to the reserve.

NOTES TO EDITORS
For further information contact Clare Reaney at the Botanic Garden
TEL: 01382 386830 or 07704 845355

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk