Several of Israel’s rare and endangered species have begun producing seeds and flowering once again as a result of a joint conservation effort, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) announced last Sunday.Many of the species that have flowered in recent months are yielding fruit for the first time, and the resulting seeds are being collected and stored at several protected locations, including the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Israel Plant Gene Bank.
The ongoing initiative is being spearheaded by KKL-JNF, Eshtaol Nursery, and the Jerusalem Botanical Garden to cultivate rare and vulnerable plant populations in the hopes of eventually strengthening their persistence in the wild.
Though the Jerusalem Botanical Garden is well-known as a site for research and floral displays, these recent developments have given it a new role as a refuge for rare wild plants.
“The greatest significance is not only that a rare plant succeeds in flowering here, but that it completes its life cycle, produces seeds, and sometimes even establishes itself independently in the field,” said Rotem Attias, manager of Eshtaol Nursery at KKL-JNF. “Every such seed is another layer of security for a species that could disappear from nature.”
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