Herbarium access during WOMAD & Clipsal 500

From 10-13 March 2017 the 25th WOMAD Festival will be held in Botanic Park. During this time access to the State Herbarium of South Australia by car will be difficult for volunteers, Hon. Associates and staff, and parking will be quite restricted. Note that Plane Tree Drive and Botanic Drive will be closed to the public a few days before and after the Festival, from 6 to 16 March.

Detailed explanations of the parking arrangements from can be found here (440kb PDF). Please consider using public transport during this time, or visit us by foot or on your bicycle. The Botanic Gardens are open from 7:15am–6:30pm.

The Clipsal 500 motor sport event will take place in a few days, from 2 to 5 March 2017.  Some roads are already closed and car parks in the surrounding area, including the Botanic Gardens, are filling up — especially since the Adelaide Fringe Festival is also happening at the same time.

State Herbarium open days 2017

As in previous years, the State Herbarium of South Australia will be open to the public as part of South Australia’s History Festival, this year on the weekend of 27 & 28 May 2017. 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 (pdf) and the over one million plant specimens (pdf) in booklets published by the institution.

Guided walking tours will be available on both 27 & 28 May at 11am & 1pm (duration 45–60 minutes, maximum 15 persons per tour).

Bookings are essential — via Eventbrite

Please subscribe to the State Herbarium’s blog to find out more about its activites, events and publications.

Roses and chocolates

Alyogyne hakeifolia (Desert Rose)

We have a botanical theme for celebrating Valentines Day this year in Adelaide which includes extended opening hours for both the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide and Mount Lofty, open until 8 pm. There are also a range of special events including ‘Love Notes’ and pop-ups around the gardens for romantic trysts in Adelaide.

Arthropodium strictum (Chocolate Lily)

The State Herbarium is geeking out by selecting two native South Australian plants to celebrate Valentine’s Day — Alyogyne hakeifolia (Giord.) Alef. and Arthropodium strictum R.Br. Common names of these two species include Desert Rose and Chocolate Lily. The Australian endemic Alyogyne is closely related to the rose mallows (Hibiscus) and the flowers of Arthropodium gets its common name from having a scent reminiscent of chocolate or vanilla. We have photographed a couple of our herbarium specimens to share these plants with you.

Happy Valentines Day!

Continue reading →

Christmas greetings

The State Herbarium of South Australia wishes all followers of the blog, its  volunteers, staff, Hon. Research Associates and Research Affiliates a very happy Christmas break and all the best for the New Year. We hope to see you all again in 2017!

Please note that the State Herbarium will be closed during the holiday period from 23 Dec. 2016 to 2 Jan. 2017.

Last week, we celebrated our traditional volunteers’ End-of-year-thank-you party.  Everyone had a nice time and enjoyed the good food.  During the last year, Herbarium volunteers and Hon. Associates donated over 12,843  hours of their valuable time, which is equivalent to 8 full-time staff members.

New Journal articles: Dec. 2016

Today, the State Herbarium of South Australia published two large papers in the online version of the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

H.R. Toelken, Revision of Kunzea (Myrtaceae). 2. Subgenera Angasomyrtus and Salisia (section Salisia) from Western Australia and subgenera Kunzea and Niviferae (sections Platyphyllae and Pallidiflorae) from eastern Australia. (8.1mb PDF)

Kunzea pulchella. Photo: M. Fagg (ANBG).

This paper almost completes Hon. Research Associate Hellmut Toelken‘s revision of the genus Kunzea. Some Western Australian taxa were treated before by Toelken (1996) (5.38mb PDF) and Toelken & Craig (2007). The current paper revises most of the eastern Australian species, as well as others from Western Australia, and follows the infrageneric framework established by de Lange et al. (2010). Ten new species and two new subspecies are described and illustrated; hybridisation within the genus is discussed in detail. A review of Kunzea sect. Niviferae in Australia, which contains K. ericoides and related taxa, is currently in progress and will complete the revision of the genus; it will be published in the near future. The New Zealand members of that section were described by de Lange (2014).

P.S. Short, Notes concerning the classification of species included in Calocephalus R.Br. s.lat. and Gnephosis Cass. s.lat. (Asteraceae: Gnaphalieae), with descriptions of new genera and species. (4.4mb PDF)

Trichanthodium skirrophorum. Photo: P.S. Short.

Phil Short from Darwin continues his revision of genera of Asteraceae, after the publication of his recent paper on Brachyscome and Roebuckiella in J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 28: 1-219 (2014) & 28: 221-222 (2015) (10.5mb PDF & 342kb PDF), with this monograph on Calocephalus, Gnephosis and related taxa. Fourty species are described in the paper: Two new genera (Balladonia & Notisia) and five new species. The complicated taxonomic and nomenclatural history of the group is also discussed.

To access content of all volumes of the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens since Vol. 1 (1976), please visit the journal’s web-site at flora.sa.gov.au/jabg (the Journal is also available through JSTOR).