Author Archives: Jürgen

State Herbarium botanist honoured

Kunzea toelkenii

A new species of New Zealand kānuka genus Kunzea was named after State Herbarium Hon. Associate Dr Hellmut Toelken. Peter de Lange, botanist at the New Zealand Department of Conservation, published the results of a 15-year study examining Kunzea ericoides, a taxon that was thought to be shared between New Zealand and Australia. De Lange examined the plants with traditional herbarium studies, hybridisation, molecular and ecological studies. It turned out that K. ericoides does not occur in Australia, and that there are actually ten different species in New Zealand, seven of which were newly described in his revision, among them Kunzea toelkenii de Lange. Hellmut Toelken is joint author of four of the new species and combinations in the paper, and was acknowledged by Peter de Lange for his long-standing research interest in Kunzea and his contributions to the taxonomy of the genus.

New Journal article, Dec. 2014

Goodenia valdentata

Yesterday, 24 Dec. 2014, the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens published the last paper for year. Peter Lang from the State Herbarium of South Australia describes a new species of Goodenia, restricted to a small area in the arid centre of the State.

Goodenia valdentata (Goodeniaceae), a new rare species endemic to Davenport Range, South Australia (2.5mb PDF)

Nine collections are known of this species, the first from 1968, but they were for a long time mistaken for Goodenia saccata or G. chambersii. The new species belongs to Goodenia subsect. Goodenia and is related to G. grandiflora and similar taxa. This increases the number of species of the genus in South Australia to 46.

To access content of all volumes of the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since 1976, please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/jabg.

Season’s greetings

The State Herbarium of South Australia wishes all its friends, volunteers and Hon. Associates a happy Christmas break and all the best for the New Year. We hope to see you all again in 2015.

JABG on JSTOR

Since this weekend, the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens is available on the JSTOR shared digital library. JSTOR is a subscription-based online library of scholarly content, to which the majority of Australian and overseas university and institutional libraries subscribe. Our presence on JSTOR is in addition to free access through the Journal’s web-page and EnviroDataSA, and strengthens the Journal’s presence in libraries worldwide. This means also that our Journal is now more easily accessible to many researchers and will automatically appear in library catalogues of universities and other institutions, who subscribe to the service. Continue reading →

State Herbarium celebrations

This week, on 9 Dec. 2014, over 90 current and former staff members, volunteers, plant collectors, State Herbarium friends and other guests gathered in the National Wine Centre of Australia to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the State Herbarium of South Australia. This also launched a year of celebrations, with other functions, seminars and talks being planned for 2015.

The State Herbarium was established in 1954 by bringing together several different herbaria from The University of Adelaide, the South Australian Museum and other private and institutional collections. With about 1.035 million specimens, it is now one of the largest herbaria in Australia.

The Celebrations started with an acknowledgment of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Adelaide area by State Herbarium Manager Peter Canty. This was followed by Helena Jenkinson from the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, who welcomed everyone to the function. Chief Botanist Prof. Michelle Waycott, then spoke about the history of the State Herbarium and its function today. Continue reading →