Author Archives: Ainsley

November, 2015 Journal articles available here

While there is temporary problem with Enviro Data SA you can obtain the recently published articles of Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens from here.

Greg R. Guerin (2015). Hemigenia yalgensis, a new species from the Mid-west region of Western Australia (Lamiaceae: Westringieae). [wpfilebase tag=fileurl id=3 linktext=’Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 29: 7–10′ /]

H.R. Toelken & A.F. Robinson (2015). Notes on Hibbertia (Dilleniaceae) 11. Hibbertia spanantha, a new species from the central coast of New South Wales. [wpfilebase tag=fileurl id=4 linktext=’Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 29: 11–14′ /]

Gintaras Kantvilas & Pieter P.G. van den Boom (2015). Observations on some calcicolous species of Lecania A.Massal. (lichenised Ascomycetes: Ramalinaceae) in southern Australia. [wpfilebase tag=fileurl id=5 linktext=’Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 29: 15–21′ /]

Seminar postponement

Please note that the next It’s All About The Plants seminar has been postponed until next month. On Tuesday, 3 November Doug Fotheringham (our newest State Herbarium Honorary Research Associate) will give a presentation.

Open House Adelaide 2014 update

Today we saw the second two groups of this years Open House visitors in the Herbarium, a mix of locals, people from interstate and overseas. Together with yesterday’s guests we’ve seen over 90 people through to have a look at the herbarium both as an old tram barn but also as modern, working herbarium. To any that are unaware the State Herbarium of South Australia is housed in the heritage-listed, 1909-built Tram Barn A building.
Open House 2014

The Open House tours were very well received. People took photographs, including aspects of the building not commonly seen, and of herbarium display material, like specimens collected on the Flinders Expedition in 1802. Presentations covered a wide range of topics including type specimens, preservation techniques, insect pest control in the vaults, weed monitoring, historic specimens, insights from molecular (DNA) data and the Herbarium’s contribution to the Global Plants Initiative.
Open House 2014

SA NRM Science Conference 2014

(see our post for info on the 2016 SA NRM Science Conference)

The SA Natural Resource Management Science Conference is underway at The University of Adelaide. An impressive range of people are attending the conference including regional staff from across the state, scientists, researchers, university staff and students and members of the public. Herbarium staff, volunteers and Friends are in attendance. There is an interesting assortment of herbarium posters on display in the Maths Lawn West marquee providing interesting material to peruse whilst munching on a muffin during the breaks, although most people are chatting and enjoying a catchup with their colleagues from around the state.

The opening plenary talks challenged our assumptions about the state of natural resources in South Australia, Prof Corey Bradshaw presented a number of lines of evidence that we have shifted our baseline expectation for what healthy ecosystems look like. Prof Chris Daniels highlighted the integrated nature of NRM region usage of science to deliver on-the-ground management activities through the NRM acting as a research provider, partner and user. Chief Botanist—Prof Michelle Waycott—presented the opening talk of the Coasts and Marine session highlighting the status of seagrasses in South Australia. Congratulations to DEWNR’s SA NRM Research & Innovation Network coordinator, Dr Jennie Fluin and her team for putting together a great program with hundreds of attendees.

Stroll around a palaeolake in a New Zealand sub-tropical rainforest

It’s All About the Plants
Tuesday, 4 February 2014—10:00–12:00
Goodman Building Lecture Theatre

by Dr John Conran (Associate Head of School)
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Adelaide

The flora surrounding the early Miocene (23 Ma) Foulden Maar palaeolake included a highly diverse Lauraceae-dominated rainforest with macro- and/or microfossils of now extinct species of epiphytic ferns, a wide range of gymnosperms, 10 species of Lauraceae, and numerous other angiosperms typical of present-day New Zealand ecosystems, including diverse monocots. The macrofossils include leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds and in several cases are sufficiently detailed to allow placement onto cladograms with putative modern relatives, improving the phylogenetic significance of the fossils and their utility for dating evolutionary trees (e.g. Fuchsia, Laurelia, Luzuriaga). Comparisons with the ecology of modern relatives to the fossils at the site suggest that the forest included canopy trees, understorey shrubs, epiphytes, mistletoes, ferns, and vines, as well as forest margin pioneers and emergent aquatic macrophytes. The rainforest supported a mixture of wind-, bird- and insect-pollinated species, as well as both animal- and wind-dispersed fruit and seed types.

Foulden Flora

The palaeoforest most closely resembled a warm temperate to subtropical notophyll vine forest, but was comprised of what are now Australian, New Zealand, South American and New Caledonian elements. CLAMP (Climate Leaf Analysis Multivariate Programme) analysis of fossil leaf morphology at the site also suggests that SE Queensland rainforests are the nearest living climatic proxy. Apparent differences between the in situ macrofossils and the microfossils can be explained partly in terms of local versus regional scales, as well as variation in the soils and underlying geology surrounding the maar. The possible ecology, climate and habitats at the palaeolake and their implications are discussed in terms of the diversity and uniformity of mid-latitude southern New Zealand at the Oligocene–Miocene boundary.

All Herbarium staff, honoraries, volunteers and students are welcome.
Morning tea provided.

[cite as: Southern New Zealand at the Oligocene–Miocene boundary: floristic and palaeoecological characterisation of Foulden Maar.
John G. Conran¹, Daphne E. Lee², Jennifer M. Bannister³ and Dallas C. Mildenhall⁴
¹ACEBB & SGC, School of Earth & Environmental Sciences DX 650 312, The University of Adelaide, SA 5005 Australia; ²Department of Geology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin; ³Department of Botany, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin; ⁴GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt]