seedling

This wild plant, whose seedlings proliferate after a fire, served as a vital food source of many of the region’s Indigenous people, who tended it with prescribed burns.

People could also barter for health services with seedlings or manure, to be used for forest restoration and farming.

During the highest heat, they had to water the plants twice a day to keep them alive, and they finally created a shaded area to protect tender seedlings from the heat.

Many keystone tree species of the region, including red and white oaks, depend on fire to curb undergrowth and create space within the canopy so sunlight can reach seedlings.

Two years on, his mum Ruth contacted the National Trust after hearing about the seedlings and grafts successfully grown from seeds and young twigs rescued from the felled tree.