Around 45 minutes from my home is the Royal Botanic Gardens Millennium Seed Bank, a brave and wondrous attempt to provide an ark for 24,000 of the world's higher plant species ... in seed form. Seeds are amazing. Some of them are as fine as powder, some as big as your head, but they all contain the genetic information needed to create a whole new living plant. And a huge number of them are economically important around the world, used to produce foods, drinks, clothing, oils, fuels and much more.   Growing a plant from seed is one of the most enjoyable things there is - I was always encouraged to do so as a child, growing cress on a paper towel on the kitchen sill. Now I encourage others to raise new varieties from seed so that we can enrich our gardens with new colours and forms. Scientists involved with the Seed Bank project have appealed for the world to create more seed banks as a way to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. There are so many plants about which little is known and several disappear every day. Forever. Perhaps seed banks will ensure that future generations will see the things that we take for granted today. GS

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