STATE BOTANICAL COLLECTION SIGNIFICANCE ASSESSMENT Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
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STATE BOTANICAL COLLECTION SIGNIFICANCE ASSESSMENT Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria November 2016 Prepared for Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Context Pty Ltd 2016 Project Team: Annabel Neylon, Associate Catherine McLay, Heritage Consultant Lorinda Cramer, Consulting Museologist Report Register This report register documents the development and issue of the report entitled State Botanical Collection Significance Assessment undertaken by Context Pty Ltd in accordance with our internal quality management system. Project Issue Notes/description Issue Issued to No. No. Date 2115 1 Working draft 07/07/16 Grant Cameron 2115 2 Final draft report 02/09/16 Grant Cameron 2115 3 Final report (draft) 2/11/16 Grant Cameron 2115 4 Final report 28/11/16 Grant Cameron Context Pty Ltd 22 Merri Street, Brunswick VIC 3056 Phone 03 9380 6933 Facsimile 03 9380 4066 Email [email protected] Web www.contextpl.com.au ii CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY V Overview v Assessment findings vi 1 INTRODUCTION 2 1.1 Background 2 1.2 Scope 2 1.3 Assessment framework 2 1.3.1 Definitions 2 1.3.2 Criteria for assessment 3 1.3.3 National themes 3 1.4 Acknowledgements 3 2 METHODOLOGY 5 2.1 Assessment methodology 5 2.1.1 National guidelines 5 2.1.2 Method 5 3 HISTORICAL OUTLINE 6 3.1 National historic themes 6 3.2 Contextual history 7 3.2.1 Botany in Australia 7 3.2.2 Developing the National Herbarium of Victoria 9 3.2.3 The National Herbarium of Victoria today 11 4 COLLECTION DESCRIPTION 14 4.1 Specimen Collection 14 4.1.1 Overview 14 4.2 Library, Archive and Botanical Art Collection 17 4.2.1 Overview 17 4.2 Collection condition 20 4.3 Facility conditions 21 4.4 Provenance and modifications 24 4.4.1 Specimen Collection 24 4.4.2 Library, Archive and Botanical Art Collection 24 4.5 Collection data 25 5 COLLECTION USES 26 5.1 Access 26 5.1.1 Physical access 26 5.1.2 Digital access 26 5.2 Users 27 5.3 Research areas 27 5.4 Survey 28 5.4.1 Background 28 5.4.2 Who responded 29 5.4.3 Access 29 5.4.4 Use values 29 5.5 Interpretation 31 iii 6 COLLECTION THEMES 34 6.1 Early European exploration of Australia 34 6.2 Nineteenth-century Australian inland expeditions 38 6.3 Twentieth-century Australian collectors 47 6.4 Nineteenth-century foreign collectors 50 6.5 Documenting and conserving Australia’s changing environment 57 6.6 Documenting Australian and foreign flora in literature 62 6.7 Operating the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria 69 6.8 Representing Australian flora in art 74 7 COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT 80 8 SIGNIFICANCE ASSESSMENT 84 8.1 Analysis 84 8.3 Statement of Significance 88 9 RECOMMENDATIONS 90 9.1 Recommendations 90 9.2 Action plan 92 10 BIBLIOGRAPHY 95 11 GLOSSARY OF BOTANICAL TERMS 99 APPENDIX A: RECORD OF CONSULTATION AND RESEARCH 100 APPENDIX B: COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT RESEARCH DATA 101 APPENDIX C: COMMUNITY SURVEY RESULTS 116 iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Overview The State Botanical Collection (hereafter referred to as the ‘SBC’) at the National Herbarium of Victoria (with the international herbarium code ‘MEL’) is the oldest scientific collection in the State. It was established by Ferdinand Mueller in 1853 upon his appointment as the colony’s first Government Botanist, and has grown into one of the largest and richest herbarium collections in Australia. The SBC is made up of two components: The Specimen Collection of approximately 1.5 million Australian and foreign-collected plant, algae and fungi specimens (referred to using the broad collective term of ‘plants’ hereafter in this report). The Library, Archive and Botanical Art Collection comprising approximately 40,000 items of primary and secondary botanical reference material and works of art that complement the Specimen Collection. The SBC is a working collection that continues to grow at a rate of approximately 6,000 to 8,500 specimens and hundreds of items of printed material per year, and is widely used by Australian and international scientists, botanists, historians, artists and others. The SBC is housed in the National Herbarium of Victoria (the ‘Herbarium’) at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (the ‘RBGV’), Melbourne Gardens. Guided by the RBGV’s vision that ‘life is sustained and enriched by plants’ and associated mission that ‘every interaction with us advances the understanding and appreciation of plants’1, the Herbarium’s programs focus on scientific research, documenting and conserving biodiversity, and providing the community with access to its invaluable working repository. The Royal Botanic Gardens Act 1991 (the Act) provides for the management of the RBGV and the National Herbarium of Victoria, with two of its six objectives directly related to the SBC: 5 (b) to conserve and enhance the State Botanical Collection and National Herbarium; 5 (c) to provide for the use of the State Botanical Collection … for scientific or reference purposes, consistent with accepted international practice.2 The SBC is currently valued at more than $250,000,000 for insurance purposes.3 This collection significance assessment was commissioned by the RBGV to assess the SBC’s standing against the Collections Council of Australia’s Significance 2.0: A Guide to Assessing the Significance of Collections criteria and thresholds. The assessment considers the entire SBC (including specimens, books, journals, artworks, documents, objects and ephemera), drawing out a number of key themes that connect the two components of the collection. This report will allow the RBGV to consider the significance of the SBC in future collection management decisions, as well as in its conservation and community engagement approach. 1 Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Plant Sciences and Biodiversity Division, Master Plan 2016 to 2020 (PSBD Master Plan), p. 2. 2 Royal Botanic Gardens Act 1991, Version No. 025, incorporating amendments as at 1 March 2015, p. 4. 3 Valuer-General Victoria, Valuation of the Herbarium Collection owned by Royal Botanic Gardens for Financial Reporting purposes fort the financial year ending 30 June 2016, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Melbourne, 2016, p. 15; Valuer-General Victoria, Assessment for Fair Value of the Royal Botanic Gardens Collection of Artworks, Furniture and Fine Arts and Literature for the Royal Botanic Gardens for Financial Reporting Purposes for the Financial Year ending 30th June 2016 and Insurance Purposes as at the Date of Inspection, Dominion Group (Vic) Pty Ltd, Melbourne, p. 8. v STATE BOTANICAL COLLECTION Assessment findings This collection significance assessment has identified that the State Botanical Collection as a whole holds historic, artistic and aesthetic, scientific and research significance at both a national and state level, the potential for historical and scientific and research significance at an international level and social significance at a local level. The State Botanical Collection is important both in the depth and breadth of its collections. Material in the SBC illustrates many important stories central to global exploration and the discovery of Australia, as well as to Australian inland expeditions of the nineteenth century, which helped to shape settlement of the continent. It comprises information about the growth of botany as a scientific discipline in Australia, increased botanical knowledge of Australia’s flora (both in Australia and globally), and our understanding of the country’s diverse and changing plant life. The SBC is a critical resource in taxonomic study, that is, in the identification, description and classification of plants, algae and fungi, and is especially important in holding the largest collection of Type specimens (both Australian and foreign) in Australia. It comprises essential material that enables research into biodiversity, conservation and changing environmental conditions – areas that have witnessed considerable growth in recent years. Furthermore, the Specimen Collection is valuable to the international research community through its rich foreign collection, and a survey of users of the SBC reveals its importance to this global audience. The foreign collection includes examples of extinct, rare and endangered material, enables comparative research on the distribution of plants throughout the world, and provides essential risk mitigation against potential losses at herbaria in other countries. The SBC is therefore an essential research tool for botanists and scientists, with its holdings of considerable research significance now and into the future. The Specimen Collection is complemented by the SBC’s extensive and diverse Library, Archive and Botanical Art Collection. This collection underpins all work undertaken at the Herbarium, provides rich historical resource material, and facilitates research and the acquisition of knowledge. Particularly rich in nineteenth-century material, the Library contains the published and unpublished manuscripts of some of Australia’s most respected botanists, including Ferdinand Mueller, in addition to botanists and scientists of international acclaim. The archive comprises comprehensive material on the history and development of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, while the Botanical Art collection includes artworks from Australia’s finest botanical artists from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. This collection significance assessment has identified that the SBC holds items of historic, artistic and aesthetic, scientific and research and social significance. It has important links to global exploration and the discovery and settlement of Australia. Its associations with celebrated