Today we saw the second two groups of this years Open House visitors in the Herbarium, a mix of locals, people from interstate and overseas. Together with yesterday’s guests we’ve seen over 90 people through to have a look at the herbarium both as an old tram barn but also as modern, working herbarium. To any that are unaware the State Herbarium of South Australia is housed in the heritage-listed, 1909-built Tram Barn A building.



The Open House tours were very well received. People took photographs, including aspects of the building not commonly seen, and of herbarium display material, like specimens collected on the Flinders Expedition in 1802. Presentations covered a wide range of topics including type specimens, preservation techniques, insect pest control in the vaults, weed monitoring, historic specimens, insights from molecular (DNA) data and the Herbarium’s contribution to the Global Plants Initiative.

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.