MORE than 70 British wildflowers - many at risk of extinction - now have a thriving future at Ryedale Folk Museum.

Alongside its vintage tractors and farm tools, the museum has cultivated a traditional farmer’s cornfield, teeming with flowers, bees and birds found in abundance more than a hundred years ago, but now rarely seen.

Once a common sight in our countryside, many of our British wildflowers are endangered, or have been lost altogether, as they have been "weeded out" of our commercial crops.

As wildflowers support an unimaginable diversity of other life, it is also no coincidence that our bees and most iconic native birds, including the skylark and turtle dove, are also struggling.

Ryedale Folk Museum’s cornfield and seedbanks are just one part of the unique Cornfield Flower Project, now in its 16th year and bringing together farmers and volunteer horticulturists across the North York Moors.

Tom Normandale, the museum’s project officer, said: "In this year’s cornfield, visitors can spot two flowers that have been critically endangered for decades, but now have a sustainable future at the museum.

"They include the corn buttercup, found in just one location in North Yorkshire when the project began - in fact, we found just half a plant that had been cut through by a plough.

"We rescued the seeds, and now from those plants nurtured in the museum’s nursery, thousands of these cheerful flowers can be seen across the region.

"My other favourite is shepherd’s Needle, with its strange-looking seed pods. It was considered extinct at the beginning of the project, and even today is only found wild in three other locations, so I’m really proud that visitors can see it in the museum’s cornfield."

The cornfield will be harvested this autumn, with many of the seeds being donated to farms, gardeners and land-owners across the area.

For more information, visit ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk