Perth Voice Interactive

SEEDS from Bayswater’s isolated endemic trees are being collected to protect their genetic biodiversity into the future. 

Some of the trees in remnant bushland date back hundreds of years, but to ensure they don’t disappear if something goes wrong, Bayswater council is replanting the seedlings in other reserves as a back-up.

Bayswater contracted Apace Nursery to collect the seeds from trees like pricklybarks, marri, jarrah and banksias. 

Councillor Giorgia Johnson says “the retention and protection of our increasingly rare and threatened locally endemic species is vitally important.

“They are our future biodiversity and natural resilience – our legacy, history, culture and connection to country.

“Remnant trees have little opportunity to reproduce due to their isolation within urban areas, and this project helps secure the future of these species.”

Cr Johnson says “this initiative is the result of years of hard work by the city’s environment and sustainability team, and the efforts of local plant experts, Glenn Cook and Mary van Wees, to preserve our local plants and biodiversity”.

The seeds will be collected this month, propagated in October 2021, and then the seedlings will be planted in parks and reserves in the 2022 planting season.

Extra seeds will be stored.

By DAVID BELL