Pupils from a Fife primary school took the classroom to the greenhouse when they visited the St Andrews Botanic Garden as part of an educational project designed to help save extinction-threatened plants.

The P5/6 class at the town’s Lawhead Primary have been busy with their teacher, Mrs Catriona Halkett, learning about endangered species.

The education officer at the garden, Mrs Jean Kemp, said yesterday, “The children were only too pleased to help out when the botanic garden asked them to adopt a rare plant and try to prevent its extinction.”

The plant that the pupils will be caring for in their own school garden is the sticky catchfly.

It is under threat and now only occurs in a handful of sites across Scotland.

Mrs Kemp invited the children to the Fife Council-run garden to meet honorary curator and plant expert Bob Mitchell, who has watched the progress of the sticky catchfly flower for some years.

Mr Mitchell told the children the conditions favoured by the plant, and how to take cuttings.

It will be put in a sunny place in their school garden.