RegisteredqyAustralia Post" . .• ·.· .. ·· . .·Pr!~tJ>ost Publication Number: PP 545~4.!i - ()005 ISSN 10:,34~121.& .Guymer :.;,· .·:.: .". ·,· . ·.. - '~> _. ·,-· The Society . ~The A:usitalian Syste~atic Botany Soci~ty:isan inc0rpbtated asso~lation ·ofover300peopk~itl} pr9fe.ssi~nal··· . or amateur interest.inl)otany. The !lim ofthe Society is toprcnnoi:e the study of plant systernatics, . - . " . ' ·.~. - : . .. ~ ' . ·Membership. ···Member~hip .is .open to·ailthose intere~ted·in ,plantsysJep1atics, · Membershii)"entitles. tb~.·lllember i:o'attend . ·.. general meetings and:ch:;lptel" meetiugs,ahdto recdve theNewsieiter, Any person may apply formembetshjpby filii rig if1'iln .• ~'Meflibersh1p'Appli~atioi!"forrn an(jfonyfln;iiJ1g: itr.withthe api:n;opriate. subscription, to the treas- .. '.uret .Subsciiptioris becomed~e onJanuary{ea~hyear. · ·. · · · ·· · · · · .-·-- ., ,-_ ·-· -- ··-· ·-- -· -. ·_·.. ·. : ,-. 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'i-,:. c '' '' • '::_-- --· ~ ~ ; • - • • - ::~~Er:·· 2·.:r: ;i:,·? ·. ;d···s;;tC:.:.·: :.Hf:~~r~~~;~~~~~~ ::~;~~!~7~"{;/~~"/i~y}:;:;.:;;;(:;~:::\#:;:;1 /(}~fiEf~~~~!~!~ Po.si~Il\.ddress ·· .• . · .;N.J: Herbariufil . .. · .. Parks & Wildlife.Coinmisslon ofthe N.T. P.Q, Box 496 · . ' · .· . PAUvl:ERSTON NT 0831 '·' .Cover· Gordon Guy mer Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 88 (September 1996) ARTICLES A CENTENARY OBSERVED he reached many parts of that diverse, fascinating - CHARLES GARDNER region. A major paper on the results established his name as a botanist. Alex George On 1 July 1924 he transferred to the department 'Four Gables', 18 Barclay Rd, of Agriculture and two years later was appointed Kardinya, W.A. 6163. Assistant Botanist and Plant pathologist. He was appointed Government Botanist on 1 January It is a hundred years since the birth, on 6 January 1929 and retired from that position in 1960. 1896, of Charles Austin Gardner, Western Australia's second Government Botanist. He was Towards the end of 1969, Gardner developed born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, and came Parkinson's Disease and on 24 February 1970 he to Western Australia with his family in 1909, died at the Home of peace, Subiaco. arriving at Albany on 27 November. Several months later his father took up farming at Although renowned for his wide knowledge of Yorkrakine, some 170 kilometres ENE of Perth. A the State's flora, his desire to solely write a Flora recent forebear on his mother's side was Charles led him to discourage others from working on it. Waterton .(1782-1865), an eccentric and na~uralist, During his term as government Botanist, virtually credited with the establishment of Britain's first no other research was undertaken within the State, nature reserve. Charles Gardner had already and little elsewhere. A few studies that come to developed an interest in botany in England, and mind (e.g. Sumrnerhayes on Frankenia, Lee on had begun a personal herbarium. He apparently Swainsona, Rogers and Nicholls on orchids) were soon came to enjoy the wildflowers of the in groups that he showed little interest in. Yorkrakine district. He has, however, left several great legacies. Gardner's first employment was with the Foremost, perhaps, are several major conservation National Bank, but he continued to study botany, reserves (notably at Kalbarri, Mt Lesueur, Jilbadgi, encouraged by the amateur botanist Emily Pelloe Fitzgerald River and Cape Arid). He was and by Desmond Herbert, then Economic Botanist influential in having these areas set aside, initially and Plant Pathologist with the Department of for conservation of flora and fauna. All are now A Agriculture. During 1919 he transcribed keys from Class National Parks. He was also a member of the a copy of Bentham's Flora australiensis at the Western Australian Subcommittee of the library of the Western Australian museum. Herbert Australian Academy of Science Committee on tried to appoint him to his department, but when National Parks which in 1962 made this failed Charles Lane-Poole took him on, in recommendations that led to the establishment of 1920, as a collector with the Forests Department. further major reserves such as the Prince Regent River, Drysdale River and Hamersley Range. Within months he was sent to the North Kimberley on an expedition led by the surveyor Probably equal with these in value to research W.R. Easton. By boat, horse, donkey and on foot, on our flora is a soundly based Herbarium. At the 2 Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 88 (September 1996) same time as Gardner was appointed Government his field books were lost, hence there is an Botanist, the herbaria of the Forests department, incomplete set at the Herbarium. An invaluable the Department of agriculture and the Western set of specimens in the Herbarium is small pieces Australian Museum were amalgamated within of type and other collections obtained, with the Agriculture. The first two collections were approval of its then-director, Ludwig Diels, from combined almost at once, and from the start the Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Gardner saw to it that the specimens were properly Berlin-Dahlem. Gardner visited Berlin during his mounted, labelled and stored, a practice term as the first Australian Botanical Liaison maintained by later curators. For various reasons, Officer based at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the collection from the Museum was not 1937-39. The herbarium in Berlin was destroyed transferred until shortly before Gardner's by Allied bombing in 1943, leaving the fragments retirement, hence he had little involvement in its obtained by Gardner as the sole surviving material incorporation. of many collections. When I joined the Herbarium in 1959, it had a Third of his legacies is a wide-ranging library, modest but useful for Western Australia. It publication record, some 320 items from 1920 to was therefore dismaying to find that with 1966. He described about 200 new species of Gardner's retirement many books were to follow plants (most of which are still accepted) and him - they were his personal copies! A formal several new genera such as Roycea and agreement was reached under which they were to Siegfriedia. In 1930-31 he published a census of re~ain at the herbarium, and half their value paid the flora of Western Australia, arranged in to him at once, the other half to go to his estate. systematic order, which, although it contained no keys, was a very useful tool to those seeking For much of his term as government Botanist, information. A large number of articles on weeds the Herbarium was housed in the old Observatory and toxic plants proved invaluable to farmers, and building near the entrance to Kings park at the for many years The Toxic Plants of Western western end of the city of Perth. In 1959, it was Australia, written in conjunction with H.W. moved to Kensington to occupy one of the rather Bennetts, was a standard work. Likewise a series dreadful new office blocks built to house the of long captions, accompanying superb water­ combined divisions of the department. Although colours of wildflowers by Edgar Dell, were issued the Government decided, in the mid-60s, to go with the Western Mail in the late 1930s and later ahead with a special-purpose building, Gardner brought together in book form. Dell is still alive, took no interest in it, and indeed rarely visited living as a recluse in the Darling Range near Perth. the Herbarium after his retirement. In the late 50s Gardner expanded this work with a longer text on the major plant families and He collected widely in Western Australia but incorporated his own colour photographs at the little elsewhere (a trip to Alice Springs in the early expense of many of the paintings, and this edition 50s is the only one outside the State that comes to of the book remains in print. His aim of publishing mind). Although his collection numbers reached a State Flora faltered, partly through his being over 16,000 the total would be somewhat less since easily diverted from one group of plants to another, there are many gaps in the series. He had a strong partly, I suspect, through an unreasonable desire sense of tradition, and many of his collection that it would be the last word.