Minister launches new guide to WA's flora

5/10/00
A seven-year project to catalogue all flora in Western Australia culminated at Kings Park today.
Every species known to exist is captured and detailed in The Western Australian Flora - A Descriptive Catalogue, which was launched by Environment Minister Cheryl Edwardes.
The catalogue gives an overview of Western Australia's botanical history and lists flowering months, flower colour and distribution of 11,922 ferns and flowering plant species recorded from the State's deserts, tropics, sandplains and native forests. It lists alien plants as well as natives.
It was jointly published by the Department of Conservation and Land Management's WA Herbarium, the Wildflower Society of Western Australia (Inc) and the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority.
Staff at the herbarium provided managerial, computing and technical support.
"It is the most authoritative botanical publication of our State's flora in 30 years and will undoubtedly become a botanical bible," Mrs Edwardes said.
"The last similar book was published in 1970. Nearly 12,000 new and previously known plants are recorded and briefly described in the new catalogue."
Since 1993, the project has received $161,000 from the Lotteries Commission's Gordon Reid Foundation for Conservation. The money was one of the largest amounts donated by the foundation to a single project.
Mrs Edwardes said more than half Australia's flora grew in WA and of that, 80 per cent was found in the South-West. But one fifth was considered rare, threatened or had an uncertain conservation status.
"Many of these species are well recognised by conservation scientists but haven't been formally named," she said.
"All species known to exist in WA are now officially named. That alone means this book's a key tool for botanists, conservationists, researchers and the scientific community."
Authors Grazyna Paczkowska, a botanical consultant, and Alex Chapman, a botanist and research scientist at the WA Herbarium, used the Kensington herbarium's 500,000 preserved flora specimens dating back to 1801 - when pioneer botanist Robert Brown collected plant specimens near Albany - to produce the book.
The Wildflower Society provided extra funding for the book's design and publication.
"This volume is timely, broad and thorough," Mrs Edwardes said.
"It's the product of productive collaboration between the Wildflower Society, the WA Herbarium and the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority."
Media contacts:
Steve Manchee (Minister's Office) 9421 7777
CALM: Alex Chapman - 9334 0506