Plant databases

PlantNET

PlantNET is our science website, created and maintained by Herbarium staff, delivering information about plants. PlantNET acts as a 'banner' or 'brand' under which the following web services are aggregated:

HerbLink: Provides details and photographs of type specimens held at NSW.
WeedAlert: Early Alert system for new occurrences within New South Wales of naturalised non-native plants.
Cycad Pages: Provides a comprehensive treatment of the world's cycads.
EucaLink: Provides specialised information on eucalypts (Angophora, Corymbia, and Eucalyptus).
Marine Algae: Provides search interfaces to the Herbarium's seaweed collections, to several overseas institutions.
Australian Freshwater Algae: Provides information about freshwater algae in Australia.
WattleWeb: Provides specialised information on wattles of New South Wales.
PNGPlants: is not part of PlantNET, but is hosted on the plantnet webserver. It provides information about the plants of Papua New Guinea - it was developed and is maintained by herbarium staff at NSW.
FloraOnline: Provides an electronic Flora of the vascular plants of New South Wales based on the printed Flora of New South Wales volumes (UNSW Press). Additional information is presented (distribution maps, botanical illustrations, photographs, weed status, TSCA status) from electronic sources maintained at the Herbarium.
Trees in the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain - interactive website for finding trees in the Royal Botanic Garden and Domain

Work is ongoing to keep PlantNET as up-to-date, informative and user friendly as possible. Targets are decided by a PlantNET Committee.

Plants in the Botanic Gardens

The following pdf files are alphabetical lists by genus of plants held in the three Botanic Gardens, including the collection of cultivars. The lists are current at April 2012 and will be updated every six months.

Data Management 2010-1011

PlantNET Flora-on-Line and EMu

PlantNET

Wayne Cherry - PlantNET Information Network Officer

Wayne Cherry has continued to improve the functionality and consistency of NSW FloraOnline. Notable improvements have been:
Listing taxa that have yet to be included in identification keys above the keys ensuring links to all taxa at the next taxonomic level.
Sorting identification keys numerically with shading applied to alternate couplets to assist navigation through the keys.
Renumbering many identification keys that were found to be wrongly numbered.
Resolving character encoding issues which resulted in characters displaying incorrectly.
Inclusion of captioned illustrations depicting important diagnostic characters on some family and genus level fact sheets.

Much time was spent researching software requirements which resulted in the upgrade of PlantNET�s gateway software (Squid) and the installation of the web access-log analyzer, AWStats. The latter will provide useful information about visitation to PlantNET.

Other positions with main input to PlantNET are: Gary Chapple (Database Manager); Lesley Elkan and Catherine Wardrop - Illustrators; all curators; 2 volunteers; Fred Langshaw and Harry O�Brien who are actively photographing the collections.

Flora Online

Louisa Murray - Flora Botanist

PlantNET, and in particular NSW Flora Online, has continued to be updated, mainly by Flora Botanist Louisa Murray, incorporating new information and recently published taxonomic accounts, as well as to ensure that information corresponds to the Australian Plant Names Index (APNI) where appropriate. In addition, Louisa has been working with Dr Peter Wilson, who is a member of the Australian Plant Census (APC) working group, about issues raised by the APC. The APC is working towards a national census of native and naturalised plants for Australia and has members from all major Australian Herbaria.

This year Yola Metti commenced employment for three days per week. Yola�s main task is to update information on freshwater algae on the NSW database EMu where from the data will be loaded into the APNI database. Eventually it will be publicly available on the APNI website. An important component of the position was to discuss various issues with Dr Tim Entwisle, resident expert in freshwater algae, who departed for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (United Kingdom) in April.

Louisa has also worked closely with the Weeds Botanist, Dr Andrew Perkins, who with several of his colleagues have discovered new weeds from field work undertaken along the coast and in the tablelands of New South Wales and around the Sydney region (see Report by Weed Botanist).

Databasing and EMu

Gary Chapple - Database Manager

Gary Chapple helped supervise a major upgrade of the collections database, EMu. This involved upgrading of most PCs at the three garden sites. New modules have been added to the database and many of the existing modules were enhanced bringing better functionality for users.

The set up for the digital imaging of specimens in the herbarium was upgraded by the renovation of a room on level 4 of the herbarium. Our photographer, Jaime Plaza, supervised the setup to ensure the production of high quality images. Gary has been working with some of our volunteers training them to image specimens. After the images are databased they become available on the NSW Flora Online website.

HISCOM

Wayne Cherry - PlantNET Information Network Officer
Gary Chapple - Database Manager

The herbarium was represented at two HISCOM (Herbarium Information Systems Committee) workshops where it was agreed that the Atlas of Living Australia infrastructure would be used as the new platform for delivering Australia�s Virtual Herbarium.

We continued to refine the web based mechanism by which we present our herbarium specimen data to Australia�s Virtual Herbarium using the software adopted by HISCOM known as BioCASE.

Weed Botanist report 2010-2011

Andrew Perkins - Weeds Botanist

In August 2010, the position of Early Detection Botanist or Weeds Botanist commenced at the National Herbarium of NSW, as part of a collaboration between the Department of Industry and Investment (I&I NSW) and the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust. The major objectives of this position were to identify weed species in NSW in order to improve the early detection of new weeds, research and review the current taxonomic status of weed species and to contribute in state-wide surveys for recently introduced and spreading weed species.

As part of the process of fulfilling these objectives, a number of key activities have been undertaken. These key activities include; conducting weed identifications, contributing data to PlantNET, undertaking fieldwork, establishing contacts with stakeholders and contributing to curation of weed vouchers within the herbarium (NSW).

Weed Identifications

An important component of this position is to ensure accurate identification of weed specimens, particularly those sent through the Botanical Information Service (BIS).

Most weeds specimens sent to BIS are identified by BIS staff but infrequently collected, regionally novel or difficult to identify weeds were forwarded to the Weeds Botanist for identification or confirmation. c.90 weed vouchers have been identified or confirmed by the Weeds Botanist in this way.

Importantly, four new introductions for NSW were identified during this period: Orbea variegata, Dichanthium annulatum, Cecropia peltata and Solanum viarum (most notably as a new weed record for Australia!).

Significantly, since the detection of Solanum viarum and the placement of a formal description and photos on PlantNET, infestations have been found in the north-west slopes and south-west slopes of NSW, as well as southern Queensland (west of Brisbane).

Field Trips

Specimens collected on field trips ultimately contribute valuable species information directly through to PlantNET which can be in turn utilised by I&I NSW weed officers and the general public. Field trips also allow the Weeds Botanist to meet regional Weed or Invasive Species officers, botanists in regional herbaria, and to conduct surveys for specific weed species in situ.

This year c.125 plant specimens were collected as vouchers for the National Herbarium of NSW. Major field trips were undertaken along the north coast and tablelands, central coast, south coast and southern tableland regions of NSW.

Contributions to PlantNET (and NSW WeedAlert)

One of the major roles of the Weeds Botanist is to contribute to the ongoing input of information to the Trust web based publications such as PlantNET and NSW WeedAlert. There are a number of activities and responsibilities involved, which include:

updating the taxonomy of weeds by editing entries in the taxonomy module within the EMu database
managing the database records so that they are accurate
preparing flora descriptions for PlantNET for new records for NSW or species which have previously lacked an online description
managing data covering range extensions (within NSW) so that it appears on the NSW WeedAlert webpage
uploading photographs of herbarium material and/or plants in situ (via the multimedia module within the EMu database) so they appear with the associated weed species page on PlantNET.

During the period of August 2010 - June 2011 no fewer than ten new descriptions of weed species have been uploaded to PlantNET, 19 nomenclatural updates / changes have been incorporated into the EMu database and associated herbarium specimens, 31 taxa have had extensions of range updated, plus 51 photographs (29 herbarium vouchers and 23 plants photographed in situ) have been uploaded onto PlantNET. In addition to this, 74 herbarium vouchers have been databased, processed and lodged at the National Herbarium of NSW; a further c. 50 are currently being processed.

Syzygium-paniculatum
Lilly pilly - Syzygium paniculatum. Photo: Cathy Offord