Author Archives: Jürgen

Bushfires in Australia

New epicormic shoots grow from burned eucalyptus trunks. Photo: AMLR.

The 2019-20 bushfire event has had a devastating effect in Australia, burning over 19.4 mio hectares of land (7.7mio in densely populated southern Australia).

In South Australia, the estimate is that nearly 300,000 hectares burnt (at the time of this blog). This includes around half of Kangaroo Island (more than 200,000 hectares) and more than 20,000 hectares in the Cudlee Creek Fire in the Adelaide Hills.

The Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium have received many enquiries asking how the burned and damaged vegetation will recover, if plants should be replanted or sown, or what people can do to help.

A message from the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium Director Dr. Lucy Sutherland can be read here.

To provide more information to the public, we have decided to launch a series of blog posts about the effect of fire on the Australian environment, as well as a separate page on this blog (see also tab on the top of the blog), where links to existing web-resources and publications are posted. We will up-date this regularly.

The effects of the bushfires on Kangaroo Island. Graphic prepared at the end of Jan. 2020 by DEW.

New journal articles: Jan 2020

Today, the State Herbarium of South Australia published two article in Vol. 33 of its journal Swainsona online.

(1) L. Haegi, Grammosolen (Solanaceae – Anthocercideae) revisited (6.3mb PDF)

Hon. Research Associate Laurie Haegi is an expert on the plant family Solanaceae and revises Grammosolen in this paper, a genus he erected in 1981. One new species is newly described and another species transferred from Cyphanthera to Grammosolen. The genus now consists of four species with non-overlapping distributions, from the Avon Wheatbelt through the Coolgardie, Great Victoria Desert and Mallee regions in southern Western Australia, to the Great Victoria Desert, western Gawler Ranges, Eyre Yorke Block and the Murraylands in South Australia.

Grammosolen archeri, a new species described by Laurie Haegi. Illustration by Fiona James.

(2) F. Tiver, Rytidosperma robertsoniae (Poaceae), a new species from southern Australia (1.3mb PDF)

State Herbarium Associate Fleur Tiver describes a new species of grass from southern Australia, Rytidosperma robertsoniae. It was first recognised as different from R. caespitosum by Enid Robertson, because of its different chromosome number of 2n=24. However, only now, there are enough specimens of the new taxon available to evaluate its morphology and segregate to as new. The typical form of R. caespitosum is also discussed and illustrated, and a lectotype is chosen for that species.

To access content of all volumes of Swainsona and the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976), please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/swainsona.

Swainsona hardcopies available

Hardcopies of two volumes of the State Herbarium of South Australia‘s journal Swainsona are now available for purchase.

Vol. 31 contains regular papers of the years 2017/18. The table of contents is available here. Retail price $50.

Vol. 32 is the special volume on Lichens of Kangaroo Island. All species that occur in the region are listed in “An annotated catalogue of the lichens of Kangaroo Island, South Australia”. An overview of this project (3.3mb PDF) that was published in Vol. 30 of the journal is also reprinted in this hardcopy edition. Retail price $42.

Hardcopy of the special volume was officially launched in Hobart by the author, lichenologist Gintaras Kantvilas, in November 2019. Dr Kantvilas is one of Australia’s foremost lichen experts and the Head of the Tasmanian Herbarium.

“This magnum opus presents the results of over 10 years of work on the lichens of Kangaroo Island. During this time, the author undertook extensive fieldwork and reviewed more than 1500 herbarium specimens. The lichen flora of Kangaroo Island consists of 366 taxa, of which 14 are restricted to the island. Ninety-five species are reported for South Australia for the first time, of which 19 are also new records for Australia.

This landmark study is the first to thoroughly examine and document the lichens of the Kangaroo Island. Each species is listed with a short, diagnostic description, many are illustrated with photographs. All specimens used to compile the catalogue of lichens are listed, making this publication an invaluable tool for future research. A brief history of lichenological work on the island is included, as well as a description of the habitats that lichens occur in.”

Published a few months before the devastating bushfires, this volume provides a unique insight into the lichen flora of the island and includes many records from areas that have been burned. It is is also available online (27.9mb PDF).

Gintaras Kantvilas and Brigitte de Villiers at the launch of “Lichens of Kangaroo Island” in front of a photo from the island. Photo: G.Kantvilas.

The volumes can be purchased from the front desk of the Botanic Gardens of South Australia, Goodman Building, Hackney Road, Adelaide (phone: 08 8222 9311). Postage will be added, depending on destination.

To access content of all volumes of Swainsona and the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976) online, please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/swainsona.

New journal article: Dec. 2019

Today, the State Herbarium of South Australia published one article in its journal Swainsona online.

D. Nicolle & M.E. French, Validation of four new combinations in Eucalyptus (Myrtaceae) from south-western Western Australia (80kb PDF)

In their new book, Eucalypts of Western Australia: The South-West Coast and Ranges (2019), the authors published new combinations for four taxa of Eucalyptus. By accident, the basionym was not cited correctly, rendering these new names invalid according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (current Shenzhen edition from 2018). Nicolle & French validate the names in this short communication.

This is the first time, a SHORT COMMUNICATION has been published in Swainsona. The Editorial Committee encourages authors who want to publish short papers with nomenclatural changes, typifications, systematic notes, new records of native or weed species, etc., to submit their manuscripts to the Editor. Short communications should not exceed four printed pages.

Eucalyptus redunca subsp. pluricaulis (Brooker & Hopper) D.Nicolle & M.E.French, one of the new names validated in this Short Communication. Image: Euclid/CSIRO.

To access content of all volumes of Swainsona and the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976), please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/swainsona.

New seedbank stamps

This month, Australian Post released a new set of three stamps about seed banking in Australia. The stamps feature seeds of rare and threatened Australian plants:

The seed image of the South Australian species were provided by the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre at the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium. The Seed Centre collects seeds from regions across the state to safeguard them in long term storage at sub-zero temperatures. By 2020, the centre aims to have at least 90 per cent of SA’s threatened plant species in the seedbank. The Australian Seed Bank Partnership facilitates and coordinates the activities of the country’s seedbanks.

Details on the individual stamps and an article on seed conservation can be found on the Australia Post website.