WAKEHURST PLACE A seed regarded as an ill omen for new kings, conquerors and chiefs is to be presented to Gordon Brown to celebrate the Millennium Seed Bank’s one billionth specimen.

The seed is from an African bamboo, Oxytenanthera abyssinica, and was collected in Mali, West Africa.

Flowers and seeds appear on the plants only once every seven years or more, and after a synchronised display all the bamboos die. This sudden death after flowering has led to the regional superstition that anyone coming to power at the same time is cursed.

The billionth seed has been put in a phial and will today be taken to 11 Downing Street, where it will be presented to the Chancellor. Staff from the seed bank have welcomed Mr Brown’s interest in the conservation project and, to avoid casting gloom over his likely move to No 10, pointed out that the seed was set last year.It will be placed in a vault in temperatures of minus 20C (-4F) at the seed bank’s HQ in Sussex.

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