Heat is on to save plants from extinction

EXPERTS face a race against time to save plants found nowhere else on Earth after the heating system at a worldrenowned botanic garden broke down.

Workers at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh fear that unique plants in the research glasshouses will wither and die as a result of the boiler failure.

The 3,000 species need to be kept at a temperature between 72F (22C) and 75F (24C) – well above the 37F (2C) low recorded in Scotland in the past 24 hours.

Dozens of temporary heaters have now been installed to fight the freeze but temperatures have only been raised as high as 57F (14C) – and engineers say the boiler will not be fixed until Monday.

By then the plant collection will have endured ten days outside their normal temperature range. Among the plants at risk is a pelargonium

insularis from Samhah Island in Yemen’s Socotra archipelago. The plant is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of ‘critically endangered’ species and is believed to be extinct in the wild.

Simon Milne, Botanic Garden Regius Keeper, described the plant collection as the garden’s most valuable asset.

He said: ‘This is a century of exploration and collecting which forms much of our international research. There are species that are new to science in these glasshouses, including some begonias and gingers and others that exist nowhere else in the world. There are some rhododendrons which are very scarce in the wild.

‘There is a cross-section of species which might be endangered, critically endangered or could be extinct in the wild.’

Mr Milne said the boiler system’s main feed pipe, which is 40 years old, had broken underneath a wall.

He added: ‘We are managing to keep the temperature between 54F (12C) and 57F (14C). This means the plants won’t prosper as it’s not their optimum temperature but they will, hopefully, survive for a few days until engineers have fixed the heating system.

‘This has never happened to us before and is a result of ageing infrastructure.’