If someone told you they had raised, say, a dodo, or a dinosaur, you’d find it hard to believe, but Andrew Shaw has done just that – resurrected an extinct species. Founder of the Rare British Plants Nursery, he specialises in cultivating endangered native plants, and last year, he brought York groundsel back from the dead.
Endemic to England, in fact, to York – meaning it only grew there – York groundsel () could once be found growing wild on wastelands, train tracks, footpaths and car parks around the city. The last-known plant died in 2003, and there were no examples left in cultivation. But Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, did have some 20-year-old seeds in
