Plant ID Course students during the field trip to Onkaparinga National Park. Photo: M. Waycott.

A Plant Identification Course for 3rd year university students was recently held by The University of Adelaide and the State Herbarium of South Australia: ENV BIOL 2510 – Plant Identification II. Before the face-to-face sessions, students were provided online resources and recorded lectures. The one-week intensive course took place in the semester break. Almost 60 students had enrolled in this course. The course co-ordinators were Dr John Conran from the School of Biological Sciences and Chief Botanist Prof. Michelle Waycott (a joint appointment of DEWNR and the University).

Bee on Leucopogon parviflorus (coastal bearded-heath) in Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park. Photo: M. Waycott.

Students were taught the basics of plant structure, plant names and nomenclature, key characters of important plant families, weed identification, the use paper-based and electronic identification keys, and how to prepare pressed plant specimens. A field trip to Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park and Onkaparinga River National Park helped students to practice their plant collection and field ID skills. Student groups were guided by State Herbarium staff members and university tutors.

In future years, the course might also be opened to members of the public, as well as students from The University of Adelaide.

Herbarium specimens and samples collected on this year’s Bush Blitz expedition to Lake Torrens are currently being processed.  Now that they have been fully dried, pressed specimens will be mounted on acid free paper and silica gel dried leaves for future DNA analyses are stored away safely.

Participants of the 2016 Bush Blitz expedition to Lake Torrens. Photo: Bush Blitz.

The expedition consisted of a team of eleven Bush Blitz and support staff (including two helicopter pilots and one cook), 16 scientists and eight BHP employees, who were volunteering and assisting the scientists during field work. (Not all team members stayed for the full two weeks.)

Two specimens of a rarely-collected arid fungus (Chlamydopus sp.). Photo: Teresa Lebel.

The State Herbarium‘s team of botanists and mycologist Teresa Lebel from the National Herbarium of Victoria reported the following highlights to Bush Blitz:

• Collection of just over 900 specimens (nearly all sub-sampled by tissue in silica gel as desiccant to provide material for DNA studies). The total number of species is not yet determined, but would be over 300 vascular plants, algae, fungi, lichens and bryophytes
• Collection of a population sample from the only known occurrence of a recently-discovered undescribed Sclerolaena (Copper Burr)
• Discovery of an intact host-root connection of the parasitic plant Orobanche cernua var. australiana (Austral Broomrape), parasitising the daisy species Leiocarpa websteri
• Recorded and sampled large populations of an undescribed wattle related to Western Myall (Acacia papyrocarpa) and currently known by the phrase name Acacia sp. Blyth Range (W.V.Fitzgerald s.n. 1898) or Acacia aff. papyrocarpa
• Sampled a submerged aquatic liverwort, and several species of algae, rarely collected in South Australia
• Collection of a tiny pathogenic (i.e. host-damaging) fungus on Tecticornia (samphire); lignum (Duma florulenta) was the only previously known host for this fungus species
• Collected about 10 species of arid macro-fungi.

Home away from home: Old Andamooka Homestead, the expedition’s base camp. Photo: Bush Blitz

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.

During the last two weeks, State Herbarium of South Australia staff participated at the Bush Blitz expedition to Lake Torrens. For the second week of the survey, Helen Vonow and Jürgen Kellermann joined the Bush Blitz team, replacing Chelsea Tothill and Chris Brodie who returned to Adelaide. Peter Lang and Dave Armstrong stayed for the full two weeks of the trip. In addition, mycologist Teresa Lebel from the National Herbarium of Victoria joined the expedition.

Botanist Peter Lang with plant presses full of collections, waiting to board the helicopter to be taken to another site. Photo: J. Kellermann.

Fieldwork was taken to another level in this second week, by the availability of two helicopters. The botany team took full advantage of this and used them to reach sites that were inaccessible by car, or particularly remote.

A field of Polycalymma stuartii (poached egg daisy) near Andamooka Homestead. Photo: J. Kellermann.

Due to the good season with much winter rain, conditions in the area were excellent. Green was the predominant colour in this “desert”. Red sand dunes boasted displays of flowering shrubs and daisies, while gibber plains were clothed with small ephemeral daisies and peas.

State Herbarium botanists filled their presses every day with plants to document the flora of the Bush Blitz expedition area. The collections are currently drying and will be examined in due course.

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.

Held every two to three years since 1988, the Australian Bryophyte Workshops aim to present opportunities for those researching, or just interested in learning about, bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) to meet and exchange knowledge of these plants in different environments. The 13^th Workshop has just taken place, for the first time in South Australia (see also announcement in the Australasian Bryological Newsletter). This presented participants with a different challenge from some other workshops — the need to search for the small and sometimes obscure in an environment not obviously favourable for bryophytes, which require free water to reproduce.

The Workshop was held from 20–26 August, the main part being based at Pichi Richi Park, near Quorn in the Flinders Ranges, and the last two days based at The University of Adelaide. On 20 August, most of the group investigated Spring Gully Conservation Park near Clare, and a half-day field trip was also held on 25 August to the Nature Trail / Spring Gully portion of Mount Lofty Botanic Garden. On 26 August, several information sessions were run by experts in particular bryophyte groups, in between time spent starting to identify some of the plants found during the previous days. Sites investigated in the Flinders Ranges included the Quorn area, Alligator Gorge, Mambray Creek, Winninowie and Melrose.

Participants of the 13th Australian Bryophyte Workshop

The 16 official participants came from South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania, Great Britain and the United States. Three members of the Friends of Spring Gully Park joined with the group on 20 August and three adults and two children from the lower Flinders area joined with some of the fieldwork there. Their interest and local knowledge were both helpful and encouraging.

Full identification of all the collected plants will involve detailed work and will take time, but it is already known that the Herbarium’s collections of some species have been greatly enriched. For example, co-organiser and State Herbarium staff member Graham Bell found the rarely-collected tiny moss Bryobartramia novaevalesiae (G.Roth) I.G.Stone & G.A.M.Scott, previously represented in the State Herbarium of South Australia by only one SA specimen. The rarely collected salt-marsh liverwort Monocarpus sphaerocarpus D.J.Carr was found in two sites during the Workshop.

Monocarpus sphaerocarpus. Photo: Bruce Fuhrer (ANBG web-site).

Contributed by State Herbarium botanist Graham Bell.