Saving rare plant Triangular Clubrush

The Environment Agency is backing a joint project to save a rare plant - now found only in the River Tamar estuary - from extinction with a breeding and re-planting programme.

This week a team of Agency conservationists have taken delivery of a lorry load - approximately two thirds of the entire UK population - of nursery-raised Triangular Clubrush, which is now being planted out at secret sites along the Tamar estuary. The plants have been specially bred by horticultural experts at the world famous Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London as part of the Agency's commitment to promoting biodiversity.

Triangular Clubrush used also to be found on the Thames estuary and Medway estuary in Kent but has now disappeared from the UK except the Tamar. The population on the River Tamar was in severe decline until the Agency began its replanting programme three years ago in association with English Nature, Plymouth City Council and the Royal Botanical Gardens. Although the reasons for the plants demise is still being studied, one theory is that in the past the industrial use of the river bank, for instance horses carrying tin and other products, kept the more invasive reeds under control. However, since the decline in use of the banks the reeds have taken control, effectively crowding out the smaller Triangular Clubrush. At one point four years ago only a one metre square clump survived. Now, as the reared plants have established themselves on the estuary the Agency has stepped up the scale of the planting this year. By the end of the planting programme there should be a viable population covering 15 metres square. "This project represents practical conservation work on the ground," said Paul Smith for the Environment Agency. "It is good to see the planting actually taking place after all the planning. We hope that the exercise will establish a sustainable population on the Tamar."