National Trust creates living gene bank of endangered native black poplar | Trees and forests

She seized it John Constable In one of his most famous paintings, the black poplar tree was like oak and beech in Britain.

Now the most rare and most threatening local species in the country, patriotism creates a living genetic bank in the Black Poor to guarantee Constable Wayne straw It does not become a tribute to an extinct dynasty.

The Charitable Corporation for the Conservation of a new collection of raising from the black and female population trees in the Killerton Estate in the East in the East Devon.

By working in partnership with forest research and other community groups to determine and collect a variety of pieces, a total of 80 trees were planted along the river flood plains with hopes that the pieces will go to project transplants throughout Britain.

“We want to create a group of black woods naturally along the river that we wore to the flood plains, the preferred habitats of the tree,” said Fi Hailstone, the national environment world of confidence in Killerton.

“The black popcorn needs male and female trees 200 meters from each other to vaccinate each other. With a significant decrease, nothing will happen in the wilderness, which is why we are entering to create a new set of education.

“Trees can live for more than 200 years and can grow to a height of 30 meters. Once created, scraps from trees can be taken and spread to project planting elsewhere, and serve as a living genetic bank, which enhances the elasticity of low species and enhances their chances of survival.”

The drainage of lands and demand for non -original trees faster and brighter contributed to the decline in species and an estimated 7,000 trees of the growing black popcorn trees in Britain, only about 150 of those tested unique genetically.

Many are also males, as they historically preferred aesthetically over female trees that produce large amounts of thin white seeds in the spring.

“The original black poplar is a distinctive tree in the British scene, it can be said that our longest citizen, and is famous in the John Constable scene.

“The slower growth of the American hybrid and inauguration, it was a useful wooden tree, and its wood is strong under the elasticity and temperature and used in factors, brakes and in MantlePieces.

“It has an important biological diversity value for many types, including hawk, Hornz, the shape of eight moths and redemption, which in turn supports the types of wood ants.”

At the Devon Plant Preservation Center, the original black casting is being raised and will be expanded using scraps of trees in Killerton as soon as they are established.

Other initiatives to stop the decrease in the black population across the national trustworthy lands, including the creation of 16 trees in oxburgh Estate in Norfolk. In Quarry Bank, Rangers works with Zoo Cheester, who runs a new black gasket breeding program, to grow trees in Cheshire Estate.

Killerton is one of the six high -nature sites that confidence has identified for its capabilities to restore nature through the entire landscape through activities such as tree cultivation and river restoration.