Dandelion-like ‘Welsh dodo’ plant continues to hold on in secret location | Science
One of the rarest plants in the world grows on a secret place on the edge of Eryri in the north of Wales.
The Hawkweed Snowdonia (Hieacium snowdoniense) is a small plant, reaching barely 30 cm high, but with a brilliant golden yellow inflorescence which looks a little like dandelion, to which it is closely linked. The Hawkweed of Snowdonia was only discovered for the first time in 1880 in a remote hill near Bethesda at the edge of Eryri, or Snowdonia, but around 1950, the plant disappeared, feared extinct after the sheep have folded heavily in the region. And so the factory obtained the non -enviable title of the Welsh dodo.
But in 2002, three plants were found hung on an inaccessible cliff edge not far from its original location in Bethesda. This group of plants remains the only known to exist in nature and are now well protected and sheltered from sheep, and their number has increased to six plants. To add to their conservation, the seeds collected have been successfully cultivated in fully cultivated plants, flourishing at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (Gardd Fotaneg Genedlaethol Cymru) in Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, where they can be seen in flowers.
