Author Archives: Jürgen

State Herbarium Open Day

The State Herbarium of South Australia will be open to the public on 9 & 10 May 2015 as part of the About Time: South Australia’s History Festival.

The heritage-listed 1909 Tram Barn A was once part of a complex housing the Adelaide tram fleet. Now the State Herbarium, it houses over one million plant specimens instead. See some of the first plants collected in the state on Matthew Flinders’ voyage and learn how all these dried specimens are critical to the effective preservation of living plants.

Read more about Tram Barn A (1.15mb pdf), the State Herbarium (733kb PDF) and the over one million plant specimens (561kb pdf) in booklets published by the institution.

Guided walking tours will be available on both 9 & 10 May at 11am & 1pm (duration 45-60 min, max. 15 persons per tour).

Bookings are essential.

Tram and bus depot, Hackney Road, 1956 (photo: DEWNR).

New book at the printer

Cylindropuntia spinosior, buds

For many years, State Herbarium Hon. Associate and former staff member Bob Chinnock has undertaken research on opuntioid cacti in Australia (prickly pears and relatives). The first part of his revision of the feral opuntioid cacti in Australia, containing the cylindrical-stemmed genera Austrocylindropuntia, Cylindropuntia and Corynopuntia, will be published soon.

Opuntioid cacti are some of the worst weeds in Australia. This book will be an essential reference tool for land owners and managers, staff of government agencies, conservation groups, people involved in bushcare, and anyone concerned with identifying and eradicating weedy cacti. It will also be a valuable addition to libraries of ecologists and botanists, and people interested in cacti and succulents.

Please go to know.ourplants.org/cacti for more information and to register your interest, so we can notify you by email once the book is published.

Plant DNA barcoding in the genomics era

It’s All About the Plants
Tuesday, 14 April 2015, 10:00–12:00
Goodman Building Lecture Theatre,
adjacent to the State Herbarium of South Australia
Adelaide Botanic Garden, Hackney Road

by Ed Biffin
State Herbarium of South Australia

Barcoding DNA DNA sequences have long been used to identify biological specimens. The DNA Barcoding initiative has sought to standardise this process through the development of one or a few short regions of DNA that can be routinely obtained from all living species and can distinguish among them. The ‘official’ plant DNA barcode, comprising two DNA fragments from the chloroplast genome, has several favourable qualities but also has limitations. With the recent development of new sequencing technologies, the availability of genome scale data has dramatically increased. Ed will talk about these developments, and how new sources of data may be used to improve the plant DNA barcoding solution.

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

New Journal article, Mar. 2015

Roebuckiella oncocarpa

When Phillip Short published his revision of Brachyscome at the end of 2015, he also described a new genus of daisy, Roebuckia. Unfortunately he discovered soon afterwards that the name had already been used for a genus of fossil fern, described by Steve McLoughlin in 1996.

In contrast to living seed plants, where there are catalogues of plant names available (IPNI, and for Australia APNI), there is no unified index of fossil plant names, and it is very difficult to search for them.

According to the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants (which also covers fossils), Phil Short has created a homonym, i.e. a new generic name that is the same as an already existing one. Homonyms are illegitimate names, according to the Code, and cannot be used. To rectify this, the author has now published a paper, renaming his genus as Roebuckiella and providing new combinations for the 9 species and 5 varieties under the new genus name.

P.S. Short
Roebuckiella P.S.Short, nom. nov., a replacement name for Roebuckia P.S.Short (2014), with new combinations (183kb PDF)

To access content of all volumes of the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976), please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/jabg (the Journal is also available through JSTOR).

State Herbarium seminars in 2015

The dates for this year’s It’s All About the Plants seminar series have now been fixed. The talks will again take place in the Botanic Garden’s Goodman Building Lecture Theatre (Hackney Road, Adelaide) on the first Tuesday of every month from 10:00–12:00, except July, August and December. In August, the State Herbarium of South Australia plans a mini-symposium to celebrate its 60th anniversary.

The following speakers have agreed to give talks in 2015:

14 Apr. — Ed Biffin (State Herbarium)
5 May — Alexis Tindale (South Australian Museum)
June (TBC) — Teresa Lebel (National Herbarium of Victoria)
8 Sep. — Jose Facelli (The University of Adelaide)
Nov (TBC) — Doug Fotheringham (State Herbarium, our newest Hon. Research Associate)

Hope to see you all.