PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #42: Restoration of Public Lands.
Wednesday, August 7. Presentation from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC

Seeds of Success for Restoration and Conservation.

Spurrier, Carol^*,1, Way, Michael^*,2, ¹ Bureau of Land Management, Washington, DC² Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Ardingly, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, UK

ABSTRACT- Seeds of Success is a conservation and native plant materials development program jointly sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management, the Royal Botanic Gardens, (RBG) Kew and the Plant Conservation Alliance. Additional partners are actively being sought for the project as it expands from its first year with BLM collecting seeds on public lands in the west to a national project with a goal of making collections from over 4000 native species by 2010. The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) held western regional workshops pulling together botanical experts across ecoregions (as identified by the Nature Conservancy) and land managers to identify target species for collection in the Seeds of Success Program. They identified both restoration and conservation target species. BLM's first priority is to collect the species needed for restoration, but other conservation targets will be collected over the next ten years. Conservation categories include native species of forage or browse value, widespread regional endemic species, native wild relatives of cultivated or economically important species, native species with significance to Tribes, monotypic native species, native species related to rare species, native species closely related to non native invasive weed species, native species that are important to native pollinators, and recognizable species such as the native state flowers, trees, and grasses. Seed samples will be stored under internationally recommended conditions at, USDA's National Seed Storage Laboratory and also at RBG, Kew and they will be available for germination and viability studies in support of conservation, restoration and management efforts. RBG Kew's involvement is through its Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) Project, which provides technical and research support for partner organizations throughout the world working on seeds of wild species.

KEY WORDS: native plants, restoration, conservation, Millennium Seed Bank Project