1. Herbarium and Services

1.1 Field Trip Working Group

A small working group has been set up to let ANBG and Centre staff know what is going on in the area of field work, with the desire of achieving some coordination and sharing of effort and resources to hopefully minimise overlaps and competing demands. The group is made up of Peter Moore, John Nightingale and Jim Croft. One of its first tasks is to document proposed field work for the forthcoming year. A spreadsheet is being circulated to the various units so that we can build a better picture of what the seasonal demands on people, vehicles, presses, dryers and so on is likely to be. This will alert staff to opportunities that may exist to accompany a particular field trip, to have material sought and collected for them, or to conflicts in vehicle bookings so that rational alternative arrangements can be made. This group does not decide what field work is appropriate or supportable - you can have that fight with the program leaders and section heads - its role is merely to record planned field work and let others know about it.

[Jim Croft]

1.2 From the Fern Front

Helen Hadobas and Ros Grace continue curating the predominantly Australian Dryopteroid genus, Lastreopsis.

The volunteer mounters celebrated the end of the fern mounting blitz. As a result of their efforts the legacy of unmounted ferns tripled in volume because mounted specimens occupy more space than unmounted ones. The fern collection was already tight on the shelves and now there is no space to put away all the newly mounted specimens. Plans are being made for a major reshuffle in the collection to make space for this material. Probably a joy in store for this season's summer Interns.

A number of new web resources were added to the Centre's Fern pages at

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/

and it is slowly growing into a useable resource. The links page at

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/fern-links.html

has been expanded to include every web site we could find that deals with pteridophytes, plus links to every database we could find that contained fern pteridophyte names or pteridophyte records, as well as a number of more general tools relevant to the ferns and their allies. As databases are usually polluted with flowering plants, this compilation of web tools will be useful for other groups as well. Murray Fagg and Jan Wilson have been selecting photographs of pteridophytes to be put on PhotoCD and then on the web. This will be used to illustrate and liven up the web site. Jim Croft donated a selection of PNG fern photos to the ANBG slide collection and these will also make their way onto the web. An interim classification of all fern genera is available at

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/classification.html.

Also placed on the web was a taxonomic account of the aquatic pteridophytes of New Guinea, at

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/aquatic/.

Preparations are being made to curate and document the pteridophyte Type collection as part of a trial for wider exercise to cover all the CANB Types, including photographs of Type specimens. The CANB and CBG Types were interleaved by name and the CBG Types refoldered into the larger CANB Type packets. Photographs of types are also going to be included as part of this exercise and will be contributing to the Type Photograph Index component of the Virtual Australian Herbarium. The specimens will be photographed and the photographs scanned for inclusion in the database and to be made available on the web. Testing and evaluation has started on image resolutions and formats. Compatibility is being maintained with parallel projects in NSW, NY and L.

Ben Wallace brought a collection of ferns from a biodiversity inventory project in Sabah, currently being dried and prepared for identification. These specimens will augment our coverage of Malesian ferns which is currently not extensive.

Visiting curator of CHR, Peter Heenan, promises to send a mountain of fern duplicates to CANB in exchange for the thousands of PNG specimens that were sent to CHR over the years. This will be most welcome as our representation of New Zealand species is surprisingly poor. Sorry about this, mounties!

The project to fill in fern gaps in the Public Reference Herbarium is underway involving associates Christopher and David Nicholls; collecting permits are starting to come in and Chris and Dave are now armed with presses and collecting books and have been briefed in collecting requirements by Anthony Whalen. They will be scouring the south coast in search of pteridophytes not yet in the PRH and will collect herbarium specimens as well as living material for the ANBG. The project outline and description is on the Internet at

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/prh_project.html

and includes a list of target taxa indicating what we have, what we should have and what we need. It is effectively a checklist of the ferns and allies of the ACT and south coast of NSW:

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/prh_taxa.html.

A guide to collecting and preparing pteridophyte specimens was placed on the web at

http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/collecting.html

[Jim Croft]

2. Research Groups

2.1 Field Trip to WA Sept 1999

I have recently enjoyed another exhausting four weeks in the southern part of WA collecting data and imagery for the next phase of the interactive key to the eucalypts - EUCLID II. The trip started in Perth and ranged through the southern wheatbelt and adjacent areas of the Goldfields as far as Dromedary Rocks, Norseman, Balladonia, Esperance, Fitzgerald River NP, Corackerup, Narrogin, Darling Range with many other places in between.

The weather was very mixed as one expects at this time of the year. Some areas were inaccessible, especially near the coast with dramatic storms and heavily clouded skies alternating with the occasional sunny day. Weather highlights were a hailstorm that carpeted Esperance white at 7.30 one morning, an intense lightning storm near Perth the night before I left to come home and a lightning-ignited wildfire in the Ravensthorpe Range just north of the town. It burnt for an afternoon crowning at the top of the range as I drove into town about 5pm. It was extinguished by a deluge that night.

Travelling for long periods in this country enables comparisons to be made about all sorts of things to provide some relief from the arduous botanical work. This was the third in a series of field trips to WA and I am now able to state that so far two towns rate equal worst for accommodation and food.

Morowa - this fringe wheatbelt and former mining town has a legendry Hotel-Motel with uncomfortable beds and poor bar service (unless you are a local). Your evening meal won’t be cooked until all locals have been served and there is no breakfast unless you get the cook out of bed. Bruce Maslin also knows this establishment. He assured me that he found the bedroom so full of mosquitos during one summer field trip that he abandoned the room and slept in the car.

Mukinbudin - a town in the heart of the wheatbelt with a Hotel-Motel featuring a cramped room with a slightly sideways-sloping bed, dripping tap and no ventilation. It was also the only place to eat in town. A large chalk-board menu adorned the wall over the bar featuring everything from Fisherman’s basket to Lasagne and steaks of various sorts. I had a beer and said to the barman that I was hungry. His reply was "today we’ve got meatloaf". Idiot me thought that this was the special for the day so I ordered a steak. "No, we’ve got meatloaf, $8.00". How foolish I felt, how awful the meatloaf when it turned up. To my surprise the kitchen was open quite early next morning, there were a couple of shearers there eating. Without me asking for anything the lady cook said "Won’t be long" and promptly returned with fried eggs, bacon and a slice of meatloaf.

Of course there were highlights also. For this trip it was:

Salmon Gums - an eastern wheatbelt town. Joe is mine host at the Hotel-Motel, which is off the main road and over near the Goldfields to Esperance railway line. He is a peaceful 50-odd years old formerly-British rocker with long grey hair and has an old Harley Davidson motorcycle parked on the back verandah. The accommodation is comfortable, food simple and well cooked. Bar not crowded, two brown dogs and about 4 people around a mallee-root fire. The stock and station agent and his wife told me how local farmers had a lot of success marketing their crops of lupins, vetch, field peas and chickpeas in India. Mostly the conversation was about Australia, Indonesia, Timor, politicians, foreign relations and so on. A lot of their wheat crops go to Indonesia. The last local went home at about eight o’clock and the bar closed then. The bulk ore train went past about the same time going down to Esperance. I grew up in this quiet sort of town and thought they had all disappeared.

Other highlights of the trip concerned the work.

Many eucalypt species were in the pink of condition with fat buds and often flowers for close up photos. The south-eastern part of the wheatbelt is particularly species rich and I spent a week here based in Salmon Gums, Esperance and Ravensthorpe. Ian Brooker joined me at Esperance bringing with him especially stormy weather so we headed inland to find enough sunshine for field photography. We tackled the eucalypts of the Balladonia - Norseman area where many species grow and successfully completed field photography for them. Next stop Fitzgerald River to look at some troublesome species in the lehmannii/conferruminata group and to fill in more blanks with field photography with many species. A few more good days then back to Perth in deteriorating weather.

Three days were spent visiting the staff at Perth herbarium, drying specimens and using the collection.

I saw about 130 species of eucalypt, collecting gumnuts for photography, seeds where necessary for later sowing, pickling buds for dissection when scoring those ever so useful floral characters for the key.

[Andrew Slee]

2.2 Burke and Wills Daisy Field Trip

Randy Bayer and Greg Chandler conducted field work in South Australia with the primary aim to collect material of the Burke and Wills Daisy, a.k.a. "Spiny Daisy", a.k.a. "Dinosaur Daisy", (Acanthocladium dockeri F. Muell). Secondary aims of the field work were to collect various other Gnaphaloid Composites that are needed for further molecular and morphological work.

The first part of the trip was spent in Adelaide making contact with Laurie Haegi, a well known South Australian synantherologist, and visiting the new Plant Biodiversity Centre. In fact we were the first persons to sign the new visitors book! We then collected the Acanthocladium at the three known sites for various studies, molecular, isozyme, and cytological.

The main project, which will involve Bayer, Chandler, and Les, is to look at genetic diversity in the three populations using isozyme and perhaps DNA markers. A day of searching failed to turn up any new locations for the taxon. The remainder of the trip was spent collecting in and around the Southern and Northern Flinders ranges. All up over 100 collections were made, mainly daisies, but also Myoporaceae, Acacia, Senna, and Pultenaea. A broken fan belt is the only mishap on the field trip ... that can be revealed.

[Randy Bayer]

2.3 Kangaroo Island and Pultenaeas

Judy West and I visited Kangaroo Island, the Fleurieu Peninsula and the Adelaide Herbarium from 28 October to 7 November. This fieldwork was part of our work on the revision of the eastern species of Pultenaea. South Australia and in particular Kangaroo Island and Fleurieu Peninsula have a Pultenaea flora that seems to be different from both Victoria and Western Australia. All endemic species from Kangaroo Island (four) and the Fleurieu Peninsula (two) were collected. The last South Australian endemic (from the Eyre Peninsula) was collected from the Adelaide Botanic Garden. Apart from Pultenaeas, a number of other species were collected at the request of colleagues. All in all it was a very successful field trip.

[Rogier de Kok]

The flowering season for many species was good on Kangaroo Island this year. After time in the salinity affected south-east of the country it was heartening to spend time collecting on KI, where the lack of rabbits and foxes continues to encourage a species rich understorey compared with the closely related mainland connections. The lack of these very same animals, this time as predators, has partly contributed to the substantial increase in the numbers of wallabies and possums on the island, especially evidenced as roadkills. The possums are even prevalent in the mallee areas with no well formed trees in site (no insult to mallees).

Rogier also managed to see a few Australian representatives – (i.e. other than the plants we were chasing) - such as sea lions, fur seals, wallabies (live), possums, western greys, dolphins + many birds - and except for on the seashore with the penguins at night we found Pultenaea species nearby!

[Judy West]

2.4 Report on Fieldwork for North Queensland - 15 August - 12 September

The field work was very successful for Prof. T. Pocs, a visitor from Hungary, who obtained many interesting collections for his Australian Frullania revision. We will receive the first duplicate of these collections to considerably enhance our tropical Australian liverwort collections. Amongst the collections he noted several species that are possibly new to science, several new records for Australia and many extensions to range of known Australian species.

Bad weather frustrated us at the most important sites (Mt Bellenden Ker and Mt Lewis). This possibly caused us to overlook some species, and it certainly hampered my search for Calyptrochaeta which I did not find. However, some other rarer Hookeriaceae were collected. Ample fertile material of Daltonia was obtained from the crown of a recently fallen Acacia, and in the main street of Babinda Chaetomitrium was found to be abundant. Distichophyllum crispulum was found at many previously unreported sites. These additional localities, habitats and altitudes will be useful for the fourth paper on Australian Hookeriaceae. The Daltonia collection will assist in the determination of the relationship between the southern D. splachnoides and the SE Asian D. angustifolia. I suspect that they are the same species.

A good range of vegetation types at various altitudes was sampled. Areas visited previously were selectively collected; in some of the earliest collected sites (1984) the vascular vegetation had changed resulting in different light intensities which was reflected in a different suite of bryophytes amongst which were several interesting species. New localities were collected comprehensively to add to our information on species distribution, habitat preferences and habit.

Near Gladstone, at the southern limits of some Pterobryaceae species, interesting and varied collections were obtained. Further material of Trachyloma, Muellerobryum and Calyptothecium was obtained for future revisions or studies.

Prof. Pocs collected about 1500 - 2000 numbers of liverworts, while I collected about 1,200 numbers of cryptogams.

Assistance and co-operation.  As is usual during these trips assistance was given to universities, national parks and forestry staff regarding cryptogams. I had also accumulated requests for material for other scientific studies to be gathered during these trips.

Several collections of Schizaea and Lygodium were made for Prof. L. Mander (ANU Chemistry) for growth hormone (gibberillic acid) studies. This assistance has been provided since 1989.

Hymenophyllum baileanum was collected for DNA studies for a post doctoral project at Duke University.

Considerable Calymperaceae collections were obtained from areas not visited by Brent Mischler last year. These will be for further DNA studies at Berkeley to help unravel the relationships of the species between the islands of the Pacific and their migration patterns. This study involves the family in the Pacific, and I am a collaborator on the project.

Continuing assistance was provided to the James Cook University (Townsville) in projects involving cryptogams. One such study is the Birthday Creek site at Paluma which is an inter-disciplinary study of a section of the stream. The bryophytes at the site were identified and the gross characters were explained to post graduate students. I assisted with mosses on my previous visit and now a reasonable knowledge of the bryophytes occurring at this creek is available. During the evening assistance was provided in identification of cryptogams. The following day was spent in the field identifying bryophytes of the region. One of the students from Cairns campus joined us for the Mt Bellenden Ker trip as her project is about the altitudinal variation in bryophytes.

Mosses were determined for Prof. Pearson's team of the Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater Research (JCU). They are investigating the vegetation of the streams on the Atherton tableland with regard to increased water use due to sugar cane cultivation. Cryptogams are included in their investigation.

At Cape Tribulation the Australian Canopy Crane Research Facility of the Rainforest CRC was visited to study the cryptogams in tree crowns. The University was keen to have a record of these cryptogams because it would assist future researchers, especially those interested in the micro-fauna. Collections were made and small samples will be returned for reference. Unfortunately the crowns were not very rich as the facility is sited in a semi-deciduous type monsoon forest.

At the James Cook University (Townsville) we discussed future co-operation and assistance with cryptogams with the acting head of the Biology Dept, Prof. R. Pearson, head of the Botany School, Dr B. Jackes and the Botany lecturer from Cairns campus, Dr P. Gadek. Most of this will involve Prof. Pocs. During the morning we met with PhD student Ms Pia Anderson who is studying the foliiculous lichens of coastal north Queensland. She wanted assistance with foliiculous liverworts and mosses. We spent time with her advising her on literature and identifying collections for her, pointing out the pertinent characters of the main families and genera most likely to be encountered.

At the Bunya Mountains National Park Ross Patterson, from the National Parks head office, joined us to get hints on bryophyte field identification and learn more about the cryptogam flora of the park. They are keen to include as much cryptogam information as possible in their working plans.

[Heinar Streimann]

3. Information Technology and Data Management

3.1 WWW Site

The URL for the Centre can be found at: http://www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr

Please check regularly for new items of interest re Centre staff and activities.

3.2 URL for Virtual Australian Herbarium (VAH)

http://143.216.198.138/~texweb/VAH.html

username: VAHuser
password: demonstration

note - case is important

[Jim Croft]

3.3 URL of ANHSIR:

http://eagle.anbg.gov.au/ibis-cgi/anhsir

enquire for username/password

[Jim Croft]

3.4 The Plant Names Project

Greg Whitbread is currently in the United States at Harvard University working on the Centre's and the Australian Plant Name Index contribution to the PNP and the International Plant Name Index. While there, programmers are working on improving the data structure to accept records from APNI, Index Kewensis and the Harvard Gray Cards and preparing exception lists or mismatches of data for editorial checking and correction. They are also working on contribution mechanisms to allow data from participating institutions to be added to the IPNI dataset.

While at Harvard, Greg attended the annual meeting of TDWG, the databases working group for biological sciences, a body responsible for developing and endorsing standards for biological datasets. A major focus at this meeting was descriptive databases and associated applications such as DELTA and LucID. Other participants from Australia were Kevin Thiele, Mike Dallwitz (CSIRO Entomology) and Barry Conn from herb:NSW.

John Hook has been looking after the database and APNI and ANHSIR applications while Greg is away and has been installing software on computers throughout the Centre following the network and hardware upgrade.

[Jim Croft]

3.5 Databasing News

Current situation on the databasing front is that we have Eleanor Hearder working with us for November, Lindy Cayzer with us on a longer contract, and we will be interviewing for the 12 month position very soon.

Eleanor and Lindy are on short term contracts with money from the ANBG, and they will be alternating between the ANBG site and the Centre. ANBG is supporting the ANHSIR database effort to capture those voucher specimens and taxa that are represented in the living collections. A rough schedule of who will be where doing what is:

1. Mondays to Fridays - J.Paul at CPBR, vascular, field books, etc.
2. Mondays, Thursdays - L. Cayzer at ANBG to d/base cryptogams.
3. Tuesdays, Wednesdays - L.Cayzer at CPBR, vascular plants.
4. Tuesdays - E. Hearder at ANBG to d/base cryptogams.
5. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays - E. Hearder at CPBR, vascular plants.
6. Wednesdays - Simone Louwhoff is back with us databasing cryptogams.
7. Fridays - L. Cayzer at ANBG to d/base gymnosperms and ferns!
8. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays - B. Collins at CPBR, vascular plants.

At the Centre we are concentrating on doing everything in bits!! So if you have some databasing you are waiting on, please be patient and we will get to it.

The pigeonholes at the Centre and those available at the gardens have been labelled so that our increased work force can tell which piles to take their work from. So if you have difficulty figuring out where YOUR databasing should go, ask Julie or leave it on top of the bench and it will get reallocated to the correct location.

If you have any priority databasing to be done, please let Julie know, and it can be scheduled in between other priority work!

The aim of having all these extra workers is to catch up with some of the huge backlogs of databasing. Bronwyn Collins is also working on databasing some of the collections we have had donated to us, mainly Josephine Piggins and J. Roberts collections. Bronwyn works Tuesday, Wednesday and part or most of Thursday at the Centre in the Computer Room.

Databasing on the plant names in APNI continues. Laurie Adams has been contracted to assist the APNI team and do further higher taxa clean up in the APNI and the plant names tables. So, if you hear any grumblings down the second floor corridor, that is what it is.

[Julie Paul]

4. Education and Communication

4.1 Rain Forest CD

Work is progressing on transferring images for the Rain Forest Key to CD. Bica have been extremely helpful sorting out a few teething problems and hopefully everything will progress smoothly from now on. Two CDs have been completed, another three are being processed at the moment leaving nine still to be done to complete the first parcel.

It has been interesting to note how different the same image from a CD looks when opened on different monitors. Bica have had their machines calibrated to meet ICC (International Colour Consortium) standards which have been accepted world wide for screen based images. Use of ICC should help to ensure high quality in the production of the Interactive Rainforest Key.

[Jan Wilson]

4.2 Bushfire! returns
to the Gardens

The popular Bushfire! exhibition has returned to the Visitor Centre at the Gardens for the summer bushfire season. Bushfire! has been created to showcase new work by Australian plant scientists and the exhibition focuses on recent research into the effects of fire on biodiversity. A new addition for the relaunch is a panel featuring CPBR local legend and much-awarded bushfire researcher, Dr Malcolm Gill (and his bicycle!).

The exhibition will be on display in the Visitor Centre 9.30 am to 4.30 pm daily until the end of February 2000.

[Pam Diver]

5. General Centre Matters

5.1 Centre Agreement

The current Centre Agreement ceases 31 December 1999. A working group comprising Judy West, Jim Croft, Mark Clements, Kirsten Cowley and Suzie Dietrich has been identifying areas of change for the new Agreement. Thanks to those staff who have provided comments and contributions. The draft document is now being collated and Pat Walsh (CSIRO PI Commercial Manager) will draft appropriate wording to be clarified/examined by legal experts from both CSIRO and EA. The new Agreement will be tabled at the Board meeting to be held on 22 December and should be ready for signing by both Parties at that time.

[Suzie Dietrich]

5.2 Summer Scholarships

Three summer scholarships have been offered and accepted.
 

• Catherine Gallagher will work with Rogier de Kok on ‘An examination into the evolution of Pultenaea juniperina (Fabaceae

• Rose Andrew will work with Joe Miller on ‘Molecular systematics of the Australian Phyllodinous Wattles (Acacia sp.)’, and

 
Daniel Falster will work with Brad Murray on ‘The spatial dynamics of rarity in understorey plants: patterns and processes.’

[Suzie Dietrich]

5.3 2000 Internship Program

Planning for the Intern Program continues to dominate much of Program C activity at the moment. The work/training program for the 2000 course is nearly finalised, pending some fine tuning for a few sessions. Interest on the part of guest speakers is still high, which is great to see, considering that some have been involved with the Program since its inception. The program for 2000 will largely be similar to that of previous years, with the exception of a 4-day field trip which replaces a series of single day sessions. There have been a moderate amount of phone and email enquiries from prospective Interns, including a number from overseas, but as yet this isn't reflected in the amount of actual applications received (the deluge has so far been restricted to one application), although there is still a week to go before the closing date.

We have had a good response from staff requesting Intern labour, and we will attempt to meet all requests on this front. There is still time to put in a bid for Intern assistance - any time before late December is OK.

Watch this space for further developments.

[Brendan Lepschi]

5.4 Powerpoint Presentations

Following my participation in a WIZARD POWERPOINT Advanced Course, I would like to let you know about the book they provided as the text. Titled "Creating Cool Powerpoint 97 Presentations", it may be useful to users of POWERPOINT. I know we are somewhat restricted when it comes to enhancing our presentations by our subject and possible use of templates, but this book may give you more ideas. It also gives you tips for presenting your actual presentation. I have also found it quite easy to read and intend to try to read more of it in the future. If you would like to borrow it, please let me know.

[Kirsten Cowley]

6. Other News

6.1 300 Years of Botanical Illustration

At last the 300 Years of Botanical Illustration has been launched and there are some signed copies extant. On Friday I heard everything from 2 to 6 weeks for the balance. The launch went well in Melbourne though the rather up-market location seemed to preclude media beagles. The Australian Club and the Ellis Rowan Room really are very gracious and suited the guests most of whom had fat cheque books.

Now I have to face up to talks, reviews, and interviews some of which have already happened. Omissions seem to be going to cause the greatest contention. A time-line indicating significant events presented in the talk which I gave to the Friends of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens is one of the omissions. None of us really thought seriously about such a thing for the book, however members of the audience in Melbourne asked if it was in the book because they appreciated it so much.

[Helen Hewson]

Jeremy Burdon and I also attended the launch on Friday. The event went extremely well with more than 100 guests, predominantly non-scientists and many of Melbourne's well-heeled set. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch officially launched the book and along with many others expressed much positive comment and praise for the product.

I think Helen has done an extremely good job linking the use of botanical illustration in the scientific sense with the changes in technology in the actual illustrative process, all along various time threads in both Australia and Europe. The book does include many excellent illustrations, but it is also a good read and I hope you enjoy it. Once the publisher receives the copies, Kirsten will be notifying you of the great deal she has for you.

[Judy West]

6.2 Visit to Sabah

I spent the last fortnight of October taking part in a biodiversity survey of the Crocker Range Park, Sabah (East Malaysia).

The prime motive for the survey is to build an inventory as part of a basis for implementing more effective conservation measures. Shifting cultivation and illegal logging are two of the more important human activities currently threatening the Park's biodiversity.

I joined the team from the University of Queensland led by Dr Dana Bergstrom, involved in recording vascular epiphyte diversity of the Park. We recorded 244 species, of which orchids accounted for the largest contingent followed by pteridophytes, thence smaller numbers of Melastomataceae, Ericaceae, Schefflera, Ficus, and one Nepenthes.

Specimens of fertile material were made, where available, and have been returned here, along with about 180 living collections in the hope of flowering them for id purposes.

Two related matters in need of attention are:

1. the hassles obtaining CITES permits where the other country does not have a CITES approved institution for exchange on that basis. Australia's regulations require the CITES export permit from the corresponding nation be issued before issuing the import permit, whereas most other countries require to see the foreign import permit before issuing the export permit, (ever heard of catch 22), and

 
2. the use of methyl bromide by AQIS in treating imported live plant material resulting in an unacceptably high death rate, especially given that other effective, less toxic treatments are available.

[Ben Wallace]

7. Diary of Events/Activities