+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |                                   SEEDS FOR A RAINY DAY                                    |
   |                                                                                            |
   |                http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/seedsforarainyday.shtml                 |
   |                                                                                            |
   |            Rescuing some of our rarest plants in the grasslands of South Africa            |
   |                            Tuesday 23 March 2004 11.00-11.30am                             |
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
   |Sandra Sykes joins plant collectors in the    |Erich van Wyk, Livu Nkuna and Robert Klein of|
   |grasslands of South Africa in search of seeds |the S.African Millennium Seed Bank Project,  |
   |from some of the rarest and most threatened   |collecting Hypoxis.                          |
   |plant species in the world for the Millennium |                                             |
   |Seed Bank Project. This has been set up by the|Erich van Wyk, Livu Nkuna and Robert Klein of|
   |Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, with a view over   |the S.African Millennium Seed Bank Project,  |
   |the next decade to collecting twenty four     |collecting Hypoxis.                          |
   |thousand species, representing ten per cent of|Researchers from the University of Kwa       |
   |the world’s flora, which are then stored in   |Zulu–Natal show Sandra Sykes the extent of   |
   |vaults at very low temperatures, perhaps for  |the trade in bulbs, roots, bark and leaves as|
   |hundreds of years, remaining viable so that   |she visits one of the largest traditional    |
   |they may be grown on some  future rainy day.  |medicine markets in Durban. Traders and      |
   |The search begins on the Umtamvuna  Nature    |healers are dealing in the very plants the   |
   |Reserve where there are over twelve hundred   |team are looking for, taking whole plants and|
   |different plants – that’s more than in the    |endangering their own resources. Yet not all |
   |whole of Great Britain – many of them rarer   |is lost because even though many of these    |
   |than the rhino. On the first day the team, led|plants are resistant to the normal methods of|
   |by Erich van Wyk is fortunate to find several |storage some are being saved through ground  |
   |rare endemic species including Erich’s name   |breaking research at the University. The task|
   |sake, Canthium van Wykii.                     |is not only to save threatened plants but    |
   |                                              |also to preserve the economy of those who may|
   |It takes a hundred mile journey the next day  |be destroying them.                          |
   |to find three species of the rare Hypoxis     |                                             |
   |plant on a roadside embankment where they had |Sandra Sykes at the traditional medicine     |
   |been previously spotted but had not been in   |market on the outskirts of Durban.           |
   |seed. This species is endangered because like |                                             |
   |many of these veldt plants its habitat has    |Sandra Sykes at the traditional medicine     |
   |been taken over with the coming of the        |market on the outskirts of Durban.           |
   |plantations and because its bulb is highly    |On the final day the team finds one of the   |
   |sought after for use in the traditional       |rarest plants in South Africa – the Pondoland|
   |medicine trade in the treatment of the        |Ghost bush with only very few plants known to|
   |symptoms of AIDS.                             |exist. So often the team spend many days     |
   |                                              |without success perhaps locating the plants  |
   |                                              |they want to collect only to find they are   |
   |                                              |not in seed or that the seed is not ripe This|
   |                                              |‘eureka moment’ is a fitting end to a time   |
   |                                              |spent with such professional and dedicated   |
   |                                              |people.                                      |
   |                                              |                                             |
   |                                              |                                             |
   +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+