24,200 down, 217,800 to go: why the pink banana is a coup for Kew

Royal Botanic Gardens hits 10 per cent in quest to collect seeds of world's plants.
The Yunnan banana, Musa itinerans, found in Asia from China to India, is the 24,200th species to be conserved for Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.
A pink banana marks a milestone as Kew Gardens celebrates collecting the seeds of 10 per cent of the world's wild plants.
The banana in question, the Yunnan banana, Musa itinerans, found in Asia from China to India, is the 24,200th species to be conserved for Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, and as such denotes the 10 per cent mark in Kew's mammoth task of collecting and preserving the world's wild seeds, which it took up in 2000.
It is 24,200 down and 217,800 to go in what is perhaps the most ambitious botanical project anywhere – that of fending off the multiple threats of extinction hanging over the flowering plants of the world, of which 70 per cent are now at risk.

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