Yorkshire trees have provided seed specimens for the UK's first national tree seed project at Kew

Kew field worker, Ian Willey, who was part of the collecting team, said Yorkshire provided some key upland areas which were really difficult to find.

“Native woodland above 300m is really reduced in the UK so finding target populations can be difficult,” he said.

“The environmental conditions these woods face is often more extreme compared to those at lower attitudes so gathering upland seeds is really important to ensure we have genetically representative collections.

“We were able to find a great collection of holly seeds in the areas around Craven and Yockenthwaite which will be go into the Millennium Seed Bank.”

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reveals thousands has been raised to help preserve Yorkshire's peatlandsRe-introducing our native white claw crayfish to the Yorkshire DalesThe seed bank, held in the temperature-regulated underground vaults at Kew, is the largest wild plant seed bank in the world and forms the UK’s first national collection of tree seeds.

The UK National Tree Seed Project, funded by the People’s Postcode Lottery, has been running since 2013 and comes to a close in March. The target species the project aims to collect include many which underpin the UK’s wider plant and animal diversity.

While this trip saw the team collect seeds from yew, spindle and holly, they have made previous trips to collect seeds from different parts of the county.

“In total we have collected 730,00 seeds from 24 species using 568 maternal plants from across the county, which all form part of the bank,” said Mr Willey.

Yorkshire has been a good collection place for the project, which divides areas into seed zones and collects from around 15 ‘mother trees’.

“As much as possible, we target ancient woodland. These are sites which have been wooded since the 1600 so we can be pretty sure the trees arrived naturally rather than being planted. These are the trees best adapted to local conditions,” he explained.

Mr Willey said visiting Yorkshire’s national parks was “a joy” and they had found some great seed specimens including witch elm, which is considered nationally vulnerable.

The Millennium Seed Bank is a working collection which will be available to conservationists and researchers looking at issues including pests, disease and the effects of climate change.