Our colleagues from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew have released this year’s State of the World’s Plants report (press release). This is the second such report, after the initial one that was released in 2016. Visit https://stateoftheworldsplants.com/ to see the web-version and to download the full reports.

The web-site states…

Last year‘s State of the World’s Plants report focused predominantly on synthesising knowledge of the numbers of different categories of plants: How many vascular plants are currently known to science? How many are threatened with extinction? What is the number of plants with uses? etc. We also looked at the main threats to these plants, including climate change, land- use change, invasive plants, disease and over-exploitation. However, simply knowing how many plants there are and how many are under threat is not enough – what is also needed is an understanding of why some plants are more vulnerable than others. This year, therefore, we have also examined the emerging evidence for the characteristics of plants that appear to make some types less/more resilient to current and future threats.

It is not all doom and gloom, however. In this year’s State of the World’s Plants, we also highlight the rapidly accumulating discoveries and knowledge that provide important sign-posts to the next food crops, medicines, timbers etc. Information is now also emerging on the effectiveness of conservation actions and policies in protecting some of the most important plant species and communities across the globe. While there is still much more to do, these positive outcomes demonstrate that with scientific knowledge and evidence-based global actions, it is possible to conserve the extraordinary diversity of plants on Earth and to build on the unique combination of beauty and science which can together provide some of the solutions for the global challenges facing humanity today.

Tibouchina roseanae (Melastomataceae), a new species  from Brasil. The pink petals have fallen, revealing the curious kneed stamens. Photo: W. Milliken.

During the last year, 1,730 plants were discovered, some of which are pictured and described on the web-site and in the report. Other focus areas of the 2017 report are

• Climate change – New evidence shows which plants have the ability to cope with change
• Medicinal plants – First time that 28,187 species recorded with a medicinal use
• Plant health – $540bn/yr cost to agriculture if invasive pests & pathogens aren’t controlled
• Wildfires – 340 million hectares of the earth’s vegetative surface burns annually (more than the size of India).

In conjunction with the publication of the report, scientists and policymakers also gathered last month at Kew for the second international State of the World’s Plants Symposium.  The two-day event was a platform to discuss issues raised in the report and to engage the scientific community, policymakers and public.

With the first autumn and winter rains, many underground fungi species respond by producing their fruiting bodies – the things we familiarly call mushrooms and toadstools.

Yellow Stainer, Agaricus xanthodermus, a poisonous fungus. Photo: P.S. Catcheside.

Australia has hundreds of native species of fungi, many of them yet to be discovered and described by mycologists (fungi scientists). As a result of European settlement there are also many introduced species, some of which we are familiar with from a culinary perspective, others are accidental introductions and definitely not edible at all.

A growing international interest in harvesting wild plants and fungi for food has seen this trend become popular in Australia. In places like Europe, knowledge around which species are edible and which species are not has been gathered and passed on for many generations.

In Australia however, it is a different story. While there is some knowledge about edibility of native fungi, there is much that is not known. Some of the introduced edible species look very much like native species about which nothing is known, and to make it more complicated, some of the poisonous introduced species can look similar to both introduced edible and native inedible species.

Deathcap, Amantia phalloides, a lethally poisonous fungus. Photo: D.E.A. Catcheside.

Because of this, the State Herbarium of South Australia has a strict policy of not encouraging anyone to eat any wild-found fungi, and does not provide public identifications for edibility. The only safe mushroom is one bought from a regulated grower or retailer.

In a poisoning emergency phone 13 11 26 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Australia-wide).

Today, three revised State Herbarium Factsheets, written by Hon. Research Associate Pam Catcheside, were released:

• Edible and poisonous fungi (500kb PDF)
• Yellow Stainer (630kb PDF)
• Death Cap (600kb PDF)

SA Health has also recently released an alert about poisonous mushrooms, see below. Similar alerts were also issued elsewhere, for example in Victoria and the ACT.

Contributed by State Herbarium Manager Peter Canty.

Lucy Sutherland in the field, collecting seeds.

Recently, the Director of Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, Dr Lucy Sutherland, was interviewed by The Weekly, the staff newsletter of the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR).

Read here about Lucy’s career and her first eight months as Director. Before her appointment in Adelaide, she was national coordinator of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership and has previously worked as Acting Director of the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. She holds a Visiting Professorship at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in Peru.