Author Archives: Jürgen

Two new bladderworts for South Australia

State Herbarium botanist Peter Lang reports that two recently described species of bladderwort (Utricularia) have been added to the Census of South Australian plants, algae & fungi. Bladderworts are carnivorous plants that have leaves modified to form small bladder-like traps.

Utricularia fenshamii is remarkable in being almost entirely confined to mound springs of the Lake Eyre Basin, and in South Australia is only found on such springs just beyond the northern edge of the Flinders Ranges.

Utricularia barkeri was named after Bill Barker, Honorary Associate and former Chief Botanist at the State Herbarium, who had made annotations on herbarium sheets in the mid 1980s to indicate differences from the more common U. dichotoma, with which it often grows. In South Australia it is found in the South-Eastern and Kangaroo Island regions.

The photos show flowers of Utricularia fenshamii (top image) compared to the more common U. dichotoma (bottom), in which it was previously included.

Utricularia fenshamii (Photo by SA Seed Conservation Centre)

Utricularia dichotoma (Photo by P.J. Lang)

4th South Australian Weeds Conference

Next week, State Herbarium staff will attend this year’s South Australian Weeds Conference at the Plant Research Centre, Waite Campus, Urrbrae. On 6 & 7 May 2014, weed experts, land managers, botanists and others will discuss the latest developments in the area, and hear of experiences on weeds and weed management from across a range of land uses, from agriculture to conservation, and across a variety of regions in South Australia.

Weeds botanist Chris Brodie from the State Herbarium will give a presentation on new weed threats in South Australia. He will also demonstrate how to collect and press “difficult” plants to get adequate herbarium specimens (e.g. some weeds are very spiny and hard to collect or preserve, such as cacti or thistles). A recent post in this BLOG also examined the number of weeds in the State and gave an account by region.

The Conference is organised by the Weed Management Society of South Australia.

No seminar in May

We regret to announce that there will be no It’s All About the Plants seminar next week. Please subscribe to this blog to be advised when the next session occurs.

Life in the pond: Leibleinia

Bob Baldock reports on algae found in the Botanic Gardens recycle-ponds: this time on a spiral blue-green alga that entwines a green alga!

Leibleiena epiphytica on Oedogonium sp.

Leibleinia epiphytica (arrowed in photograph) is a cosmopolitan, extremely thin, thread-like photosynthetic bacterium (Cyanophyte, or blue-green alga) that wraps itself around threads of other algae. Here it has embraced the common green alga, Oedogonium. Both were found in the small rafts of algae floating in recycle ponds.

Amazing what you find under the microscope!

Open House Adelaide 2014

The State Herbarium will be open to the public on 3 and 4 May 2014 during Open House Adelaide 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) and the over one million plant specimens (561kb pdf) in booklets published by State Herbarium staff.

Guided walking tours will be available on both 3 and 4 May at 11am and 1pm.

Bookings are essential.