We regret to announce that there will be no It’s All About the Plants seminar next week. Please subscribe to this blog to be advised when the next session occurs.
Life in the pond: Leibleinia
Bob Baldock reports on algae found in the Botanic Gardens recycle-ponds: this time on a spiral blue-green alga that entwines a green alga!
Leibleiena epiphytica on Oedogonium sp.
Leibleinia epiphytica (arrowed in photograph) is a cosmopolitan, extremely thin, thread-like photosynthetic bacterium (Cyanophyte, or blue-green alga) that wraps itself around threads of other algae. Here it has embraced the common green alga, Oedogonium. Both were found in the small rafts of algae floating in recycle ponds.
Amazing what you find under the microscope!
Open House Adelaide 2014
The State Herbarium will be open to the public on 3 and 4 May 2014 during Open House Adelaide as part of the About Time: South Australia’s History Festival.
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 (1.15mb pdf) and the over one million plant specimens (561kb pdf) in booklets published by State Herbarium staff.
Guided walking tours will be available on both 3 and 4 May at 11am and 1pm.
Bookings are essential.
SA NRM Science Conference 2014
(see our post for info on the 2016 SA NRM Science Conference)
The SA Natural Resource Management Science Conference is underway at The University of Adelaide. An impressive range of people are attending the conference including regional staff from across the state, scientists, researchers, university staff and students and members of the public. Herbarium staff, volunteers and Friends are in attendance. There is an interesting assortment of herbarium posters on display in the Maths Lawn West marquee providing interesting material to peruse whilst munching on a muffin during the breaks, although most people are chatting and enjoying a catchup with their colleagues from around the state. 
The opening plenary talks challenged our assumptions about the state of natural resources in South Australia, Prof Corey Bradshaw presented a number of lines of evidence that we have shifted our baseline expectation for what healthy ecosystems look like. Prof Chris Daniels highlighted the integrated nature of NRM region usage of science to deliver on-the-ground management activities through the NRM acting as a research provider, partner and user. Chief Botanist—Prof Michelle Waycott—presented the opening talk of the Coasts and Marine session highlighting the status of seagrasses in South Australia. Congratulations to DEWNR’s SA NRM Research & Innovation Network coordinator, Dr Jennie Fluin and her team for putting together a great program with hundreds of attendees.
More Algae Revealed fact-sheets online
Halopeltis verrucosa
Algae Revealed is a collection of fact-sheets on marine algae of southern Australia, compiled by Hon. Research Associate Bob Baldock.
Recently, 16 new or up-dated fact-sheets were published on the State Herbarium’s eFloraSA web-site.
To access the over 600 Algae Revealed fact-sheets, go to www.flora.sa.gov.au/algae_revealed/index.shtml.
You must be logged in to post a comment.