One of the rarest plants in the world is growing at a secret location on the edge of Eryri in north Wales.
The Snowdonia hawkweed (Hieracium snowdoniense) is a small plant, barely reaching 30cm high, but with a brilliant golden yellow inflorescence that looks a bit like a dandelion, which it is closely related to. The Snowdonia hawkweed was first discovered only in 1880 at a remote hillside near Bethesda on the edge of Eryri, or Snowdonia, but in about 1950 the plant vanished, feared extinct after sheep grazed heavily in the area. And so the plant earned the unenviable title of the Welsh dodo.
But in 2002 three plants were found clinging on to an inaccessible cliff edge not far from its original location in Bethesda. This group of plants remain the only ones known to exist in the wild and are now well protected and safe from sheep, and their numbers have increased to six plants. To add to their conservation, seed collected from them has been successfully cultivated into fully grown plants, flourishing at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (Gardd Fotaneg Genedlaethol Cymru) in Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, where they can be seen in flower.
