Rare York groundsel flower brought back from extinction

About 60,000 York groundsel seeds were planted in York

A rare flower that was first identified in York has been brought back from extinction by botanists.

Yellow-flowered York groundsel is a hybrid of two other plants that first appeared in the city in the 1970s.

It disappeared in the 1990s but scientists planted seeds around the railway station and thousands of tiny plants have now begun to flower.

Andrew Shaw of the Rare British Plants Nursery said the plant was "incredibly scientifically interesting".

It is a natural hybrid of two relatively common plants, native groundsel and Oxford ragwort, but it is unusual because hybrids are not normally fertile, Mr Shaw said.

"We instantly got a new species and that's a really, really rare event. It's only ever been observed on the British Isles on a handful of occasions."

He said it was "completely random" that the hybrid appeared in York and that the plant may have become extinct because of the use of weed-killing chemicals and building work on sites where the flowers were growing.

Fortunately some York groundsel seeds were stored at the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew, and were planted in polytunnels and in the city as part of a project between Natural England and the Rare British Plants Nursery.

Alex Prendergast from Natural England said the growth of the plants had been hindered by a lack of rain

Around 60,000 seeds were planted around York but a lack of sufficient rain means the plants are small, according to Alex Prendergast, a vascular plant senior specialist at Natural England.

But he said there were now several thousand of the plants and he believed it was likely that they would now self-seed around the city.

"It's quite a cheery, sunny-looking thing that brightens up the pavements. It also might be important for pollinators in the future, it's quite a showy little plant and it flowers every month of the year," Mr Prendergast said.

"Hopefully now when people walk down the streets of York and they see a little yellow flower on the pavement, they will take a closer look at it," Mr Shaw added.