“Banksia seeds collected by the Lapérouse Expedition “ By Henri Colombié

In Nos. 43 and 44 of the ‘Journal de bord’, we touched on the experiment attempted by the Conservatoire national botanique [National Botanical Conservatory] of Brest, an organization engaged in the preservation of diversity in the wild plants of the national patrimony, to germinate the Banksia seeds that had been collected from the wreck of the Boussole at Vanikoro by divers of the Solomons Association and preserved in Nouméa. On the advice of Alain Conan, we then got in touch with Dr Stéphane Buord, Director of International Scientific Relations at the Conservatory.
This delicate experiment was carried out with the help of INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) in Dijon [National Institute for Agricultural Research – this is the No.1 agricultural institute in Europe and no.2 in the world], of Végénov, Continue reading →