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No.No. 125 125 DECEMBER December 20052005 PPrice:rice: $5.00$5.00 Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 125 (December 2005) AUSTRALIAN SYSTEMATIC BOTANY SOCIETY INCORPORATED Council President Vice President John Clarkson Darren Crayn Centre for Tropical Agriculture Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney PO Box 1054 Mrs Macquaries Road MAREEBA, Queensland 4880 SYDNEY NSW 2000 tel: (07) 4048 4745 tel: (02) 9231 8111 email: [email protected] email: [email protected] Secretary Treasurer Brendan Lepschi Anna Monro Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research Australian National Herbarium Australian National Herbarium GPO Box 1600 GPO Box 1600 CANBERRA ACT 2601 CANBERRA ACT 2601 tel: (02) 6246 5167 tel: (02) 6246 5472 email: [email protected] email: [email protected] Councillor Councillor Kirsten Cowley Marco Duretto Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research Tasmanian Herbarium Australian National Herbarium Private Bag 4 GPO Box 1600, CANBERRA ACT 2601 HOBART, Tasmania 7001 tel: (02) 6246 5024 tel.: (03) 6226 1806 email: [email protected] email: [email protected] Other Constitutional Bodies Public Officer Hansjörg Eichler Research Committee Kirsten Cowley Barbara Briggs Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research Rod Henderson Australian National Herbarium Betsy Jackes (Contact details above) Tom May Chris Quinn Chair: Vice President (ex officio) Affiliate Society Papua New Guinea Botanical Society ASBS Web site www.anbg.gov.au/asbs Webmaster: Murray Fagg Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research Australian National Herbarium Email: [email protected] Loose-leaf inclusions with this issue • Notice of ASBS annual subscriptions for 2006 • Application for membership of ASBS Publication dates of previous issue Austral.Syst.Bot.Soc.Nsltr 124 (September 2005 issue) Hardcopy: 11th November 2005; ASBS Web site: 16th November 2005 Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 125 (December 2005) ASBS Inc. business From the President This Newsletter might arrive well after the tinsel and decorations of the Christmas season have Australian Systematic Botany Society Inc. been put away but belated good wishes to you Proposed ballot to change Rules and yours for the year ahead. If the ballot goes ahead, your participation is requested I would like to start this report with a special for the required high level of return from members. thank you to Wayne Harris and his team at the Individual voting slips will be posted directly to your Queensland Herbarium for hosting a very mailing address successful conference on behalf of the Society in November. A full report appears elsewhere in Papers posted out after March 27th AGM. this Newsletter. The nomenclatural master class that followed the conference was, I think, well the December issue in 1980. I am not really sure received by all who attended. Thanks to Dick what 25 years of affiliation has meant for either Brummitt for his effort in running the course. Society, but Council thinks the idea of forming Council hopes courses such as this will become a links with botanical societies in near regular feature at alternate ASBS conferences. neighbouring countries has a lot of merit. It is The next offering will probably be a short course currently discussing the possibility of forming on botanical Latin. ties with one or two societies in New Zealand and the conferences in Cairns and Darwin should We are looking forward to seeing lots of you in provide opportunities to look to our near Cairns for the next ASBS conference in Cairns in neighbours to the north. Rest assured that this is November. Don’t be put off by any suggestions not a plan to take ASBS multinational. If it helps of how hot it can be in Far North Queensland at broaden our membership base that would be a that time of the year. We will be meeting in an useful spin off, but Council’s aim at this stage is air conditioned venue and, for those intrepid to improve communication and provide members people who want to get out and about in the with an opportunity to hear what is going on field, there will be lots of species flowering in elsewhere. the rainforests at that time of the year. The organising committee will offer a very The next AGM of the Society is to be held in interesting program of talks and field excursions. Canberra on Monday 27th March. At this meeting Mark the dates November 13th to 15th in your the proposal to change the definition of the diaries. I hope to see you there. Details will Society’s financial year will be discussed once appear on the ASBS web site before the next again. Details of the motion were included in the newsletter appears. last Newsletter. Council would appreciate your participation in the ballot that hopefully will Council now has expressions of interest from follow the AGM. Individual voting slips will be members willing to host conferences for a posted directly to your mailing address. Closing number of years beyond 2006. At this stage it date for their return to the Secretary will be looks fairly certain that Darwin will follow Monday 15th May. Please take the time to reply - Cairns in 2007. This will be the first time an hopefully with your support for the change. I ASBS conference will be held in the Northern should point out that the changes will have no Territory. My thanks to the members there for effect on the membership year. Subscriptions the early enthusiasm they are showing. will still fall due on 1st January as they do now. Careful readers of this Newsletter might have This change will help the Society function much seen a small note on the inside front cover which more efficiently and Council is hoping you will lists The Papua New Guinea Botanical Society as support it. an affiliated society. This notice first appeared in John Clarkson Hansjörg Eichler Research Grants The first round of applications for grants from Applicants should note that the maximum grant the Hansjörg Eichler Research Fund close on has been increased from $1,000 to $2,000. March 14th. Application forms are available from the Secretary, Brendan Lepschi, Australian Web ref. 1. www.anbg.gov.au/asbs/eichler/index.html National Herbarium, GPO Box 1600, Canberra Darren Crayn ACT 2601 or from the Web (Web ref. 1). Chairman of the Research Committee 1 Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 125 (December 2005) Miscellaneous The koala plant and related monickers E. Charles Nelson Outwell, Norfolk, England “Monicker ... slang. Also monacer, moniker, monniker. 1851. [Origin unkn.] A name.” I’ve just spent a snowy Christmas (northern cuneatus); hairy j. (A. barbiger); Scott River j. hemisphere!) week trying to make sense of some (A. detmoldii); yellow j. (A. detmoldii). names: a perfectly worthy occupation, you will say, for someone who calls himself a taxonomist! The other monicker that recurs on FloraBase is Yes! — but the thing is I have been unable to woolly bush (as two separate words) or achieve a sensible outcome, because these names woollybush (one word). This name is one of are beyond The Pale of taxonomy as we know long-standing and I think it probably had its and love it. The ICBN ignores them, and the origins in the Albany area; certainly that’s where ICNCP declines to become involved: “The I heard it used most frequently in the early 1970s formation and use of common, colloquial, or by the local wild-flower enthusiasts. But there is vernacular names of plants are not regulated by a BIG problem with woollybush/woolly bush: the Code” is its opt-out Principle 7. No wonder: it’s difficult to get the spelling of woolly right. angels fear to tread this path, but I’m not one of How many o’s and/or l’s are there? If you’re those ethereal beings, so here goes ... American you can very correctly omit the second l. The Internet has at least these variants: wolly, What a mess, or, at least, that’s the impression I woolly, wooly and even woolley (Murdoch gain from what is available to me on-line about University website). The first is the more just one Australian genus: Adenanthos. There entertaining because if you append “bush” and are, I must say, some splendid Australian exclude sites containing “adenanthos” and then botanical web-sites. Given the genus, I found overlook the catalogue of Coromandel Native CALM’s FloraBase easy to use and quick, and it Nursery (Coromandel East SA 5157), you will contained the information I wanted — and as far find yourself face to face with the frightful as Adenanthos is concerned there isn’t much to George Dubya. grouse about. The South Australian herbarium’s But back to the plants: woolly bush, as two website obviously was on holiday or strike, as it words, is A. sericeus according to FloraBase, would not respond when I wanted it to. I didn’t while as a compound word it is found (on at least go any further east. And, there are, of course, one website, but not necessarily FloraBase) in hundreds of other web-sites that appear tandem with Albany (A. × cunninghamii, A. magically when the one word “Adenanthos” is sericeus); coastal (A. sericeus); common (A. Googled (not cricket!); it seems the genus has cygnorum); Fitzgerald (A. dobagii); little (A. been spreading far and wide since I last saw one argyreus); prickly (A. acanthophyllus); prostrate in the wild. (By the way “adananthos” produced (A. × cunninghamii, A. meisneri); tall (A. 3 hits; “adenenthos” 2 hits; “adenanthus” 153 sericeus); and, velvet (A. velutina). Adenanthos × hits because it is a perfectly proper specific cunninghamii is also sometime called epithet yet a handful were actually about woollybush (without any qualifying epithet).