Author Archives: Jürgen

40 years Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens

On Sunday, 5 Nov. 2017, the Botanic Gardens of South Australia celebrates the 40th anniversary of Mt Lofty Botanic Garden. The birthday party will be held from 10am-3pm. You can enjoy food trucks, live music, nature play activities for the kids, and beer, wine and cider from local Adelaide Hills producers, guided walks and tours, plant sales and more.

Visit the Botanic Gardens web-site for more information.

First envisaged in 1911 by the Director of the Botanic Gardens, Maurice Holtze, as a cool climate arboretum, the first land for a botanic garden in the Adelaide Hills was purchased in 1952 under Noel Lothian. It took many years of planning and planting, until in Nov. 1977 Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens was opened to the public.

Mount Lofty Botanic Garden, Main Lake. Photo: sa-uavs.com.au

Conferences in Adelaide

(1) This week, the Botanic Gardens of South Australia, hosted the 8th BGANZ Congress. Around 140 delegates from Australia, New Zealand and around the world attended the conference. The theme of the Congress was Preservation: Exploring and Adapting, underlining the need for adaptation of botanic gardens in their ongoing environment and the ever changing attitudes of the community. This covered both the natural, cultivated and political environment and the required strategies to ensure the preservation of endangered species can continue.

The BGANZ Congress Booklet is available for download (64mb PDF).

(2) At the end of next month, 26-29 Nov. 2017, the State Herbarium of South Australia, the South Australian Museum, The University of Adelaide and Flinders University will host the joint meeting of the Australasian Systematic Botany Society (ASBS) and the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists (SASB), including the biennial Invertebrate Biodiversity and Conservation Meeting. The conference with the theme Systematics 2017 — Integrating Systematics for Conservation and Ecology will be held at The University of Adelaide.

Plenary speakers will include Gonzalo Giribet (Harvard University), Judy West (Parks Australia), Nerida Wilson (Western Australian Museum), Shelley James (National Herbarium of New South Wales) and Kristofer Helgen (The University of Adelaide). Over 120 delegates have already registered, many of whom will give presentations on their research.

Please visit the Conference web-site for more information and registration.

The University of Adelaide, Barr Smith Library in the foreground. Photo: M. Seyfang (CC-BY).

Bushblitz 2017 (1)

Great Victoria Desert dunes from the air, covered in rings of spinifex grass. Photo: P.J. Lang.

From 16 Sep. – 1 Oct. 2017, three botanists from the State Herbarium of South Australia, Peter Canty, Peter Lang and Juergen Kellermann, and a colleague from the Western Australian Herbarium, Ryonen Butcher, took part in the Bushblitz expedition to the Great Victoria Desert.

They returned with about 600 plant collections from the region for the State Herbarium. A duplicate set of specimens will be lodged with the WA Herbarium. The collections have been dried and are currently being examined and identified. Work in this environment was greatly facilitated by the use of a helicopter to access remote locations.

The Great Victoria Desert bioregion (GVD) is shared between South Australia and Western Australia. It is one of the least explored areas of both states. Two previous reports by the Biological Survey of South Australia cover the area, i.e. the reports for the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands (34.3mb PDF) and the Maralinga Tjuratja Lands (20.4mb PDF). However many other areas in the regions remain unexplored. Detailled reports on two GVD areas in WA have been prepared: Queen Victoria Springs Nature Reserve (MSc thesis) and the Peterswald Hill area (12.7mb PDF). The Bushblitz study area covered the Maralinga Tjaruta Lands and Mamungari Conservation Park, including the Serpentine Lakes.

The expedition could not have been undertaken with the help and support of the traditional owners of the area, the Maralinga Tjarutja Council, senior people from Oak Valley and Tjuntjunjara, as well as the Spinifex Rangers and the Alinytjara Wilurara NRM. This is greatly acknowleged.

Bush Blitz is an innovative partnership between the Australian Government, BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities and Earthwatch Australia. It is the world’s first continent-scale biodiversity survey, providing the knowledge needed to help us protect Australia’s unique animals and plants for generations to come.

Fungus of the month: Oct. 2017

Scutellinia scutellata, Flinders Chase National Park. Scale bar = 10 mm. Photo: David Catcheside.

A small orange disc fungus, Scutellinia scutellata, is the State Herbarium of South Australia‘s Fungus of the Month for October 2017. This little fungus is widespread, but particularly spectacular in DEWNR’s Park of the Month, Flinders Chase National Park. The common name for Scutellinia scutellata is “eyelash fungus”, because of the long dark hairs fringing the margin of the brilliant orange disc.

Scutellinia scutellata, Flinders Chase National Park, fresh herbarium collection PSC4233. Each division of scale bar = 1 mm. Photo: David Catcheside.

Scutellinia scutellata (L.) Lambotte is a common disc fungus with a worldwide distribution. It is saprotrophic, growing on rotten, wet wood, sometimes on soil but in association with wood. The fruit bodies may be in clusters or gregarious over the wood.

The generic name is derived from the Latin scutum, a shield, with the suffixes -ella, denoting the diminutive stature, and –ineus, meaning resembling. The specific epithet scutellatum means shield or saucer shaped.

The fruit bodies, apothecia, are small, stemless saucers of height 1–5 mm and diameter 2–10 mm, although they may reach a diameter of 20 mm. The apothecia start as tiny spherical knobs which expand and become saucer-shaped. Later the saucers flatten into discs with upturned margins. The surface of the upper disc is bright orange to orange red, its margin is fringed with stiff, bristle-like black-brown hairs to 1.5 mm long. The lower surface is brownish due to the dense brown hairs.

Scutellinia scutellata, hairs on outer surface of apothecium. Scale bar = 10 µm. Photo: Pam Catcheside.

Scutellinia (Cooke) Lambotte is in the family Pyronemataceae Corda, order Pezizales J.Schröt. Sixty-six species of Scutellinia are recognised worldwide, eight occur in Australia. In South Australia, besides S. scutellata, three other species have been recorded: S. kerguelensis (Berk.) Kuntze, S. vinosobrunnea (Berk. & Broome) Kuntze and S. pseudomargaritacea Le Gal.

More information about the species was published online by Michael Kuo (mushroomexpert.com), Mykoweb and Wikipedia.

Other references

Beug, M.W., Bessette, A.E. & Bessette, A.R. (2014). Ascomycete Fungi of North America. University of Texas Press: Austin, Texas. P253-254 (D; CP).

Fuhrer, B. (2005). A field guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books: Melbourne. P337 (D; CP).

Gates, G. & Ratkowsky, D. (2014). Field Guide to Tasmanian Fungi. Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club. P235 (D; CP).

Saunders, B. (2015). Admiring the Fungi of the Lower Eyre Peninsula. Printmax, Government of South Australia, Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board. P170 (D; CP).

D = description; CP = colour photograph.

Contributed by State Herbarium Hon. Research Associate Pam Catcheside.

Seaweek 2017

To celebrate Seaweek (4-10 Sep. 2017), State Herbarium Hon. Research Associate Bob Baldock wrote the following article for this blog…

Looking towards the west – seaweeds tell the tale of South Australia’s marine connections

The State Herbarium houses about 90,000 specimens of seaweeds (algae), collected over some 160 years. Why so many? and why for so long?

Hypoglossum harveyanum, a rare red alga looking as if it is on fire, and even more striking under the microscope (right image). Photo: R.N. Baldock.

Well, southern Australia has more marine species belonging (that is, endemic) to our region than any other place in the world. Surprisingly, this includes the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), which, although it has more species, shares many of them with other regions. Some think we should call our region the GSR – The Great Southern Reef – just to highlight this (Bennett et al. 2015). We have some species that have only been collected a few times (such as Hypoglossum harveyanum, above). Will we ever find them again?

Satellite image of surface sea temperature. Source: www.cmar.csiro.au

And we also need to know if numbers, types and distributions of species are changing over time, hence the need to collect, preserve and catalogue specimens. How else will we know if climate change is affecting our coastal marine plants and animals? The vast amount of information in the Herbarium’s collections is available to answer some of these questions (Wernberg et al. 2011).

Where does southern Australian marine diversity come from?

Our continental neighbours, Africa and South America, dip further south than Australia They have a south to north distribution of marine species, related to ocean currents. But in Australia, we have a west to east warm current, the Leeuwin, that sweeps across the south of our continent. This current has peculiar swirling characteristics, seen from space that trap subtropical species and carry them as far as the SE of South Australia (Wernberg et al. 2013).

A mix of the cool water red alga Griffithsia teges and several species of green Caulerpa, a genus usually found in tropical regions, growing at Robe. Photo: R.N. Baldock.

Add to that both cold water lying in southernmost parts of southern Australia, which encourages the growth of giant brown algae, and localised upwelling of cold, nutrient rich, deep waters, due to prevailing SE winds in summer, and you have a recipe for large diversity. Odd mixtures of cool- and warm-water species can live together.

South Australian gulfs also harbour relicts from ancient sub-tropical times. One is the brown alga Cystoseira trinodis.

Occasionally drifting algae move great distances from their source. One spectacular example is the brown alga Turbinaria.

The relict brown alga Cystoseira trinodis (LEFT & MIDDLE) and a close-up of Turbinaria (RIGHT), washed into the Great Australian Bight from the Indian Ocean. Photos: R.N. Baldock.

Unfortunately, unwanted algae (“weeds”) such as Caulerpa cylindracea (Algae Revealed fact sheet under the name Caulerpa racemosa var. cylindracea; 365kb PDF) can also drift from the west, too. Recognising them from closely related species and tracing their spread along our coasts is essential for environmental management.

Caulerpa cylindracea. (LEFT) A mass of plants exposed at low tide. (RIGHT) Detail of the runner by which it spreads, and club-shaped upright parts. Photos: R.N. Blaldock.

Herbaria with their data, validated by specimens, are storehouses of information and can assist in this.

If you want to know more about the southern marine algae, have a look at Bob Baldock’s illustrated Algae Revealed fact sheets. They can be accessed by clicking the MORE button in the eFloraSA Census search, or through the static index page.

You can also check H.B.S. Womersley‘s monumental Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia. Species fact sheets on all southern Australian algae can also be accessed through the eFloraSA Census search, by clicking on the name of the genus or species, or by accessing the static index page.

PDFs of the scanned six volumes of the Marine Benthic Flora are available on EnviroDataSA:

Part I – Introduction, seagrasses, green algae (21.2mb PDF)
Part II – Brown algae (31mb PDF)
Part IIIA – Red algae: Bangiophyceae & Florideophyceae (36.6mb PDF)
Part IIIB – Red algae: Gracilariales, Rhodymeniales, Corallinales & Bonnemaisoniales (29.3mb PDF)
Part IIIC – Red algae: Ceramiales 1 (36.3mb PDF)
Part IIID – Red algae: Ceramiales 2 (40.3mb PDF).