The orange lichen Teloschistes chrysophthalmus growing with other species on a dead branch. Scale bar 10 mm. Photo: J. Jarman.

Today, the State Herbarium of South Australia published Vol. 32 (2019) in the online version of Swainsona. This issue of the journal contains one large monograph on the lichens of Kangaroo Island:

Kantvilas, G. (2019). An annotated catalogue of the lichens of Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Swainsona 32: 1-97. (27.9mb PDF).

This magnum opus of Hobart-based lichenologist Gintaras Kantvilas, Head of the Tasmanian Herbarium, presents the results of over 10 years of work on the lichens of Kangaroo Island. During this time, the author undertook extensive fieldwork and reviewed more than 1500 herbarium specimens. The lichen flora of Kangaroo Island consists of 366 taxa, of which 14 are restricted to the island. Ninety-five species are reported for South Australia for the first time, of which 19 are also new records for Australia.

This landmark study is the first to thoroughly examine and document the lichens of the Kangaroo Island. Each species is listed with a short, diagnostic description, many are illustrated with photographs. All specimens used to compile the catalogue of lichens are listed, making this publication an invaluable tool for future research. A brief history of lichenological work on the island is included, as well as a description of the habitats that lichens occur in.

Hardcopy of this special issue “Lichens of Kangaroo Island” will be printed soon and should be available next month. More information on Dr Kantvilas’ project can also be found in a paper he wrote for the Proceedings of the Botany Symposium “Botany 2016 — Past, present and future“ (Swainsona 30: 17-24; 3.3mb PDF).

Granite boulders with orange lichens along the coast of Dudley Peninsula. Photo: G. Kantvilas.

To access content of all volumes of Swainsona and the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976), please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/swainsona.

Compiled by State Herbarium Botanist Jürgen Kellermann.

Cephalotus follicularis, unusual white form. Photo: M. Waycott.

Yesterday, the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium hosted the launch of a new publication on one of Australia’s iconic carnivorous plants:

Cross, A., Kalfas, N., Nunn, R. & Conran, J. (2019). Cephalotus: The Albany pitcher plant. (Redfern Natural History Productions: Poole, UK).

The Albany pitcher plant, Cephalotus follicularis was first described by the French botanist J.J.H. de Labillardiere from specimens collected by Leschenault de la Tour on Baudin‘s expedition to Australia. It had also been collected by Robert Brown during Flinder‘s voyage. The species is the only one in the genus Cephalotus (i.e. it is monotypic), which in turn is the only genus in the family Cephalotaceae (in the order Oxalidales), making it a truly remarkable species, not closely related to any other carnivorous plant.

“Cephalotus: The Albany pitcher plant” is the first comprehensive monograph on this unique species, featuring chapters on its botanical history, systematic and evolution, detailed botanical descriptions, illustrations and photographs, discussions of the plant’s morphology, ecology and genetics, as well as sections on conservation and cultivation of Cephalotus. The book is available from the publisher’s website.

Cephalotus follicularis, line-drawing by Alastair Robinson.

Cephalotus is instantly recognisable for its distinctive and charismatic insect-trapping leaves. It is unique amongst carnivorous plants worldwide, being the only carnivorous plant in the rosid clade of flowering plants and the only monotypic family and genus of pitcher plants. Taking into account its extreme genetic and geographic isolation in the southwest of Western Australia, its pitcher leaves represent perhaps the most astounding example of convergent evolution amongst carnivorous plants, their toothed mouths and overarching lids being highly reminiscent of Nepenthes tropical pitcher plants and American pitcher plants alike. Cephalotus is extremely localised, surviving in only a fragment of its historic range as a result of habitat loss, disruption of natural ecological succession, and poaching.

From the publisher’s website.

Large group of Cephalotus follicularis pitchers. Photo: M. Waycott.

The authors are: Adam Cross (Curtin University), Nick Kalfas & John Conran (both from The University of Adelaide) and Richard Nunn (a member of the Board of the Botanic Gardens of South Australia). Editor of the book was Alastair Robinson (Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria). The preface was written by the Chief Botanist and Head of the State Herbarium, Michelle Waycott.

Tonight, Lauren Black, one of the artists who were commissioned to produce artwork for the book, will give an “Artist Talk” about her watercolour of Cephalotus (unfortunately sold out). The line-drawings of Cephalotus were prepared by Alastair Robinson, who won the second price of the prestigious Margaret Flockton Award with his illustration, this year.

Cephalotus follicularis, watercolour by Lauren Black.

Compiled by State Herbarium Botanist Jürgen Kellermann.

SEM of the a cluster of coronulate papillae on the lower leaf surface of Akania bidwillii. Image: J.G. Conran.

Today, the State Herbarium of South Australia published one article in the online version of Swainsona.

J.M. Bannister & J.G. Conran, Comparative leaf morphology and cuticular anatomy of Akania bidwillii (Akaniaceae) (6.7mb PDF)

The authors publish an illustrated description of the leaves of the monotypic genus Akania, which is endemic to eastern Australia. Together with the the genus Bretschneidera from China, Vietnam and India, which is also monotypic, it forms the small family Akaniaceae.

This paper presents the first detailed analysis of the leaf and cuticle morphology of the species. The results are compared to recently discovered Akaniaceae fossil leaves from South America. This year, the authors also published a paper on the first discovery of fossil Akania inflorescence and flowers from New Zealand.

Akania bidwillii, growing in rainforest at Hayters Hill Nature Reserve, N.S.W. Photo: J.G. Conran.

To access content of all volumes of Swainsona and the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976), please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/swainsona.

Several years ago, the State Herbarium of South Australia published Grasses of South Australia by J.P. Jessop, G.R.M. Dashorst & F.M. James in collaboration with Wakefield Press. This is the well-known standard work on the grass family Poaceae for the State and can also be used in adjacent regions of other States.

KeyBase is a database and web application for managing and deploying interactive pathway keys. It presents traditional dichotomous keys in a new way online. In addition to standalone keys, KeyBase also delivers identification keys to the new  online Flora of Australia and VicFlora.

Keys to the South Australian Flora are currently being added to Keybase. Last week, Kat Ticli from the State Herbarium completed the conversion of the keys to species in Grasses of South Australia and uploaded them to KeyBase. Poaceae is one of the largest plant families in the State. Having this key and others online will enable easy access to this information and be helpful to anyone wanting to identify the native and naturalised grasses of South Australia.

Click here to enter the Grasses of South Australia KeyBase project.

Last month, Dr Andrew Thornhill started working at the State Herbarium of South Australia.  Originally from Melbourne, Andrew studied and worked at Monash University (Melbourne), the Australian National University, Australian National Herbarium and CSIRO (all Canberra), the Australian Tropical Herbarium (Cairns), the University of California (Berkeley, USA) and the federal Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (Canberra). In his current position, he is working for both, The University of Adelaide and the State Herbarium on a variety of projects, including the analysis of molecular data-sets and re-organisation of the Herbarium’s bryophyte collection.

In 2011, Andrew started a project on creating a complete species level phylogeny of the eucalypts (which include the genera Eucalyptus, Angophora and Corymbia). The idea was to sample DNA for as many eucalypt species as possible, combine that data and see how all of the species were related to each other. This week, over seven years later, the project was published.

Thornhill, A.H., Crisp, M.D., Külheim, C., Lam, K.E., Nelson, L.A., Yeate,s D.K., Miller, J.T. (2019). A dated molecular perspective of eucalypt taxonomy, evolution and diversification. Australian Systematic Botany 32: 29-48.

Eucalyptus porosa. Photo: Clive M. Chesson.

There are over 800 described eucalypt species in the world and we are close to soon having 900. Around 1/8th of the total number of eucalypt species are native to South Australia and they grow in the arid and forest areas in an array of habits, be it mallees or trees up in the hills.

The paper presents a dated phylogeny of the Australian eucalypts and a diversification analysis to show if any parts of the eucalypt phylogeny have had accelerated diversification. What Andrew and his colleagues found was that many of the species that grow in the arid and forest areas of southern and south-eastern Australia have only evolved in the last two million years, this includes many of the eucalypt species that grow in South Australia. Their origin comes due to a divergence with Western Australian eucalypts, but that’s not to say that Western Australia is where eucalypts originated. There are even deeper splits in the history of eucalypts that suggests that either south-west Western Australia or south-east Queensland could be the source of origin. One way to find this out may be by finding new ‘oldest’ fossils in either of these places, which would help provide evidence that eucalypts grew there in the deep past.

The results of this research are also discussed by Andrew in an article in The Conversation. The treatment for eucalypts in the new, 5th edition of the Flora of South Australia is also available (33.7mb PDF).