Top secret plant-saving mission
One of Britain’s rarest plants – found growing only on Cornwall’s Lizard peninsula – has been saved from extinction by the Eden Project and conservation charity Natural England, at a secret plantation on the Cornish coast. The Lizard juniper ( Juniperus communis subsp. hemisphaerica) was down to its last 13 plants six years ago, with concerns it might be wiped out by grazing wildlife or summer fires. But now there are around 200 saplings growing near the last few wild specimens left on the heathland of the peninsula. The saplings were started off at Eden’s nursery near Pentewan from cuttings taken in 2010 and were planted out in November, in an ambitious programme to save the plant from extinction. Although a success so far, the trees are protected by an electric fence, and a propagation plan to take more cuttings every five years is expected to safeguard their future. But staff at the Eden Project refuse to reveal the plantation’s location to protect it from over-enthusiastic visitors.