The ambitious (and expensive) plan to insure Australia’s flora
An overhaul will create a nature and science precinct to protect Australia’s plants because if they’re lost, they’ll be lost forever. From AFR Magazine’s upcoming May issue, out on April 30.
The Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. Josh Robenstone
In early 2019, Neville Walsh, a botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, was sifting through clippings, seed pods and blurry botanical photos sent by mail from a plant enthusiast at Cobungra, in the Victorian high country, when he spotted a few “genuinely rare species”.
He decided to visit the property, owned by octogenarians Anne and Jim U’Ren, and found himself scrambling down a steep gully to the banks of a silvered creek where he noticed a curious wattle. “I thought, ‘Bloody hell, what’s this?’” he recalls.
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