Kew Gardens' Millennium Seed Bank has reached its target of collecting 10% of the world's wild plants, with seeds of a pink banana among its latest entries, BBC reported.
The wild banana, Musa itinerans, is a favourite of wild Asian elephants.
Seeds from the plant, which is under threat from agriculture, join 1.7 billion already stored, as part of a massive nature conservation project.
All the seeds are kept both in their country of origin and in Kew's premises at Wakehurst Place, West Sussex.
The 10% target was set when the Wakehurst Place facility was completed in 2000, in Kew Gardens' 250th anniversary year.
The seed bank partnership, which involves more than 120 organisations in 54 countries, is now aiming to collect and conserve a quarter of the Earth's flowering plant species by 2020.
Musa itinerans becomes the 24,200th species to be stored in underground vaults which are kept at -20C.
Banana marks seed bank milestone
