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The ProNatura Nursery Association is a non-profit organization affiliated to the National Pro Natura Federation and registered in the Regional Voluntary Registry of Lombardy. Its main activity is the management of the ProNatura Nursery, an experimental station for protecting the native flora of Lombardy.
It also manages a small greenhouse inside Milan’s San Vittore detention facility, offering orientation and training to the convicts.

This Association was spontaneously born in 1987 and established its headquarters at Parco Nord Milano. It is currently looking for a new location, in order to expand and improve its nursery with a botanical garden.

The aim of the Association is to protect the native flora of Lombardy and to safeguard its biodiversity, both by protecting the existing one and by restoring anything that has been lost over the years.
The Pronatura Nursery, in fact, produces seedlings to be introduced into the wild, with particular regard to locally rarefied species. As regards specific biodiversity, the Association strives to boost the survival of the local species with “ex situ conservation” techniques. In other words, natural seeds are selected and then re-introduced into the local environment with particular care and pretty thorough planning.
Among the carefully selected species are Campanula raineri, Paeonia officinalis, Leucojum aestivum, Leucojum vernum, Marsilea quadrifolia, Iris sibirica, Carex otrubae, Sagittaria sagittifolia, Allium angulosum, Allium insubricum, Paliurus spina-christi (from ancient Insubria – a historical-geographical region stretching approximately between the Adda River in the east and the Sesia River in the west, and between the San Gottardo Pass in the north and the Po River in the south), and archaeophyte segetal Centaurea cyanus, Agrostemma githago, Gladiolus segetum, and Tulipa sylvestris.

Speaking of specific biodiversity, the ProNatura nursery strives to remedy the alterations and impoverishment of the genetic heritage of each individual species, by producing indigenous plants – strictly local – collecting the seeds as close as possible to the very area of intervention: reforestation would then take place planting native plants exclusively.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)