Kew Millennium Seed Bank Project Holds 10% Of World's Wild Plant Species

HAYWARDS HEATH, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 15: Jo Walmisley, a Higher Botanical Horticulturist, examines a Orbea plant in the cool, frost-free glasshouse at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, which now holds 10% of the world's wild plant species, at Wakehurst Place on October 15, 2009 near Haywards Heath, Sussex, England. The 24,200th seed species is a pink, wild banana from China which is an important staple for wild Asian elephants. The seed bank, which aims to collect and store a quarter of the world's plant species by 2020 to support conservation and safeguard biodiversity. The bank is the largest wild seed bank in the world and holds 3.5 billion seeds from around the world in its vaults, which are kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius, to preserve them for hundreds of years. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)