Friends of the Australian National Botanic Gardens Number 97 April 2021 President Neville Page Vice President Linda Beveridge Secretary Lynden Ayliffe Treasurer Helen Elliot General Committee Wendy Antoniak Dave Bassett David More Imperial Jezebel, Delias harpalyce (female) upperside Alan Henderson Wanda Filsell Lesley King Public Officer Wendy Antoniak Exec.Director ANBG Dr Judy West Post: Friends of ANBG, GPO Box 1777, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia In this Issue Telephone: (02) 6250 9548 (messages) Homework – John Wrigley’s photos 3 Website: www.friendsanbg.org.au Friends’ activities and contacts William Baxter – ‘so excellent a collector’ of the ‘curious and rare’ 6 Fronds Committee: Barbara Podger Cathy Robertson Discovering Butterflies 9 Denis Warne Pam Rooney Redevelopment of the East Core Precinct 10 [email protected] Report from the Friends’ President 11 Membership Lesley Harland Pam Cooke Banksia Garden - update 12 [email protected] Friendly Chatter 14 — 16 Growing Friends Maurice Hermann Guides Lesley King Botanical Art Groups Botanic Art Groups Helen Hinton Photographic Group Rhonda Daniell Growing Friends Plant Science Group TBA Social Events Tricia Morton Photographic Group Talks Convenor Liz Truswell Volunteer Guides For all these groups contact: [email protected] Plant Science Group Booked Walks: [email protected] Botanical Bookshop 17 Fronds welcomes your articles and photographs. Gardens Shorts 18 Fronds is published 3 times per year; the deadline for articles is mid-February for the April issue; mid- Friends Briefs 20 June for the August issue and mid-October for the December issue. Email or post material to the Fronds What’s on at the Gardens - April 2021 to August 2021 22 Committee at the above address or place in the Thursday Talks - April to August 2021 23 — 24 Friends letterbox, located inside the Gardens’ Visitor Centre, between 9.30 am and 4.30 pm, every day, Editorial messages: telephone (02) 6250 9548. Design and layout: Pam Rooney Cover: Imperial Jezebel (female) - underside. Photo by Dave Bassett Printing: Union Offset Printers Imperial Jezebels (Delias harpalyce) display a lovely, leisurely flight usually around the canopy ISSN 2207-6492 of trees but people on Suzi Bond's butterfly walk in February were lucky enough to see one attracted to Syzygium flowers, much closer to the ground. They breed on the mistletoes in eucalypts, and their caterpillars are gregarious. 2 April 2021 Fronds 97 Homework – John Wrigley’s photos Murray Fagg n the last week of March 2020, working-from-home-arrangements were introduced by the Gardens as part of the Australian Government’s Ilockdown procedures for staff in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As an associate I was fortunate to be given permission to bring home a large 35mm slide scanner and its controlling computer to continue digitising my photos for the Australian Plant Image Index (APII), a task I had been working on at the Gardens for several years. In June 2020 I completed scanning and databasing my own botani- cal slides, almost 40 years of photography. © Wrigley, J.W. a-39404 J.W. Wrigley, My next working-from-home task was to tackle the collection of 35mm slides M.Fagg taken by my colleague and friend John © Wrigley, with whom I started working John Wrigley in Coffs Harbour in 2009 in March 1971. John was Curator of photographed during the editing of the Wrigley & Fagg book: Eucalypts – a celebration. the then Canberra Botanic Gardens and I was the Education Display Officer. The native orchid, Rhinerrhiza divitiflora, After John’s death at Coffs Harbour on Gardens since 2014 and staff delivered photographed in John's private glasshouse them to my home. Some were in a case, behind the Curator's Cottage (now Seedbank, 17 July 2014, I helped his family sort ANBG) in 1969. out his botanical estate. His wife Marcia others were stored in an unusual way suggested I bring his photos to Canberra – in recycled Kodak boxes glued onto to be incorporated into APII and made sheets of wood. Each slide had a unique available online to the public. number linked to an Excel database as well as having information written on His 35mm slides had been in storage in the slide-mount. The number sequence the Photograph Collection office at the started in the 1960s. © Wrigley, J.W. a-40524 J.W. Wrigley, M.Fagg © Part of John's 35mm slide collection, in a 1960s commercial slide case (left) and his home-made John's photo of Karrabina biagiana showing storage system of Kodak boxes glued to wooden boards (right). the coloured young leaves, growing in his garden at Coffs Harbour in 1990. He was interested in foliage, not just flowers. Fronds 97 April 2021 3 Homework – John Wrigley’s photos (contd.) John Wrigley AM was born in 1934 in 1962 he was editor of the State newslet- plants were included in his private col- Lindfield, a suburb of Sydney, walking ter Native Plants for NSW. lection, as were photos taken on family distance from Lane Cove National Park. holidays etc. In the early 1960s John was involved On walks here with his father John was with the establishment of the Ku-Ring- In December 1976, John and I signed introduced to Australian wildflowers. Gai Wildflower Garden at St Ives. He an agreement with William Collins His parents were keen gardeners, but first visited the developing Botanic Publishers to produce Australian Native did not use native plants, because, his Gardens in Canberra as a delegate of Plants (ANP), a book with six edi- father assured him, “these could not be the SGAP conference held in 1962. tions over the next 37 years. We got grown in the garden”. It was these various elements of his clearance from the then Public Service At Sydney University he majored passion for Australian plants that saw Board to undertake private publishing in organic chemistry, and his first him appointed as the Curator of the and maintain private photo collections jobs were with Shell and the food then Canberra Botanic Gardens in May for such purposes. company Unilever. After completing 1967, working to prepare for the official In 1977 we travelled extensively on our a cadetship with Unilever he was soon opening in 1970. annual leave, visiting gardens through- in a management position as ‘Edible John held the position of Curator until out south-eastern Australia in prepara- Fats Manager’ with a staff of 30 men 1981 when he moved to Coffs Harbour tion for the book. I concentrated on producing Stork margarine. where he spent the rest of his life. close-up flower photographs while John John’s hobby and recreation activity took notes of what was being grown, From 1967, all the photos John took at the time eventually shaped his life. and photos to help him write descrip- as part of his Gardens work and field He joined the Sydney branch of the tions of plants in cultivation. trips went into the nascent Gardens' newly established Society for Growing Photograph Collection, which became With John’s move to Coffs Harbour Australian Plants (SGAP) in 1959; one of my responsibilities when I took in 1981 our collaboration continued, he had been married to Marcia for on the educational role. But John had with later editions of ANP, as well as two years and they were establishing a built himself a small glasshouse in the major books on Australian Proteaceae in garden for their new home. The follow- backyard of the Curator’s Cottage (now 1989 and Myrtaceae in 1993. In each ing year he was elected to the SGAP the ANBG’s Seed Bank) where he pur- of these cases we did a fieldtrip over Committee as ‘Scientific Officer’. By sued his hobby of growing native and several weeks to Western Australia with exotic orchids. Photos he took of these me taking photos, Rosemary Purdie © Wrigley, J.W. a-39864 J.W. Wrigley, Wrigley, J.W. a-40415 J.W. Wrigley, © John's photo of the fern Platyzoma A close-up photo of Banksia carlinoides, known as Dryandra carlinoides in 1983, on a WA field-trip microphyllum in NT in 1988. He didn't only for the Proteaceae book. Voucher: Purdie, R.W. 5079 photograph pretty plants of high ornamental value. 4 April 2021 Fronds 97 Homework – John Wrigley’s photos (contd.) collecting voucher herbarium specimens was his generosity in giving talks to trips in 1983 and 1990. In loading these and John taking notes and supplemen- clubs and societies. He continued to images into APII over 500 photos were tary photos to assist him with writing take photos on a digital camera for use linked to their herbarium voucher speci- plant descriptions. as Powerpoint lecture images after 2006, mens, often updating the identification but these were not high-resolution in line with taxonomic changes over the John’s home, named Bongil Bongil, photos suitable for APII. last 30 years. at Korora Basin just outside Coffs Harbour, became a haven for both Over the course of 2020, I scanned and I would like to thank Marcia Wrigley exotic and native plants, many unusual databased a selection of about 2,800 and the Wrigley family for their generos- or rare, and for several years it was part of John’s photos and loaded them into ity in contributing John’s photos to the of the Open Garden Scheme giving the APII. They are now accessible via APII Australian Plant Image Index. This dona- public access on certain days. It was a on the internet. tion reinforces the strong connection great source of tropical plant photos. John had with the Australian National One unexpected result of the project Botanic Gardens over almost 60 years.