The male cone being collected at Kew

A rare female cycad plant, which is only able to produce seeds every few years, became ready for fertilisation at Wildwalk-at-Bristol's Botanical House three months ago.

And by a "lucky chance" a male plant ready for pollen extraction was found at Kew Gardens in south-west London.

An expert used a turkey baster or large pipette to put the male's pollen on to the female plant on Tuesday morning.

"We won't really know for another eight months if it has been a success or not," said a spokesman for Kew Gardens.

In June, the female cycad (Encephalartos ferox) began to produce the distinctive red cones - which the plant shows every few years when it is ready for fertilisation.

Kew's male cycad began to "cone" on 24 July and became ready for pollen extraction.

At this stage the cone is cut from the male plant and placed on a sheet of paper so that the pollen can be collected over a couple of days.

The pollen is then mixed with distilled water and squirted into the female cone.

CYCAD FACT FILE Cycads have been around for 245 million years Threatened with extinction Used to provide 20% of world's vegetation Suffer from illegal collection

Wesley Shaw, the botanical horticulturist in the Palm House at Kew whose idea it was to bring the plants together, said: "Pollinating these cycads is quite a tricky business but we are confident it will work.

"It's very fortunate to have At-Bristol's female cycad coning at the same time as we usually have to collect the pollen and freeze it until a female plant cones, sometimes years later, when the pollen has become less viable."

Cycads thrived during the Jurassic Period, about 206 million years ago, but are now threatened with extinction in the wild, only surviving as small isolated populations in Central America, South Africa and Australia.

They are often illegally collected and have suffered from habitat loss due to agriculture and urban development and as they are very slow growing they take a long time to regenerate.

Cycads can live for hundreds of years and Kew's male specimen is about 80-years-old.