500,000th specimen added to WA's native plant collection

27/4/01
The number of plants in the State's native plant collection has hit the 500,000 mark.
If all the pressed specimens from the Department of Conservation and Land Management's Western Australian Herbarium were laid out end to end they would cover an area the size of Perth's central city precinct - more than seven square kilometres!
The herbarium's half-millionth specimen - an undescribed species of Clematis, or Traveller's Joy - has been named Clematis delicata.
The attractive climbing shrub with cream and purple flowers grows in the Wheatbelt between Wubin and Ravensthorpe and is often mistaken for another species of Traveller's Joy, Clematis linearifolia, that grows in coastal sandy districts.
Environment and Heritage Minister Dr Judy Edwards said the State collection had a flora specimen for every five square kilometres of WA's 2.5 million square kilometres.
"Seventy new specimens and 1,000 edits to our specimen database are added each week," Dr Edwards said.
"In the last three years 14 new WA species have been named - and there are many more species to be found."
The Minister said there was an ever-growing demand for information about plants and the environment, a demand acknowledged by the fact that the herbarium was Australia's most technologically advanced.
"Because of the herbarium's technological prowess, WA leads Australian herbaria in being able to match field observations about flora with images and other descriptive information," she said.
"We have a picture of what plants are found where, and from this we can begin to assess what areas need to be protected."
Farmer, wildflower enthusiast and CALM Regional Herbarium Network President Dave Quicke collected the 500,000th specimen on Kulin-Lake Grade Road.
"The contribution from the community, from farmers, from scholars and students underpins conservation and reinforces our commitment to the environment," he said.
"In the last three years, volunteers from CALM's regional herbaria have contributed more than 10,000 specimens to the WA Herbarium's collection."
Dr Edwards said the initial collection of WA plants was carried out first by buccaneers such as William Dampier, followed by scientists accompanying explorers such as Baudin and Peron, D'Entrecasteaux and Flinders.
"In the early days of settlement it was carried out by residents such as Georgiana Molloy and James Drummond, and by scientific visitors such as Freiherr von Hugel and Ludwig Preiss,'' she said.
"Later, Victorian botanist Ferdinand von Mueller and his correspondents, who included explorers such as Giles, Forrest and Helms carried on this work. Visiting scientists such as Spencer Moore, Diels and Pritzel also added to the collections.
"From the outset, people developed our plants collections for a wide range of purposes - economic, horticultural and scientific.
"Botany has always held a vital position in our society and that knowledge of plants, ecosystems and the environment is something of which to be proud."
Media contacts:
Minister: John Carey (08) 9421 7777
CALM: Dr Neville Marchant (08) 9334 0505