AtAstvaliaVJS~steVVJatlc BotaVJ~ Society NEWSLETTER No. 86 MARCH 1996 Price: $5.00 Registered by Australia Post Print Post Publication Number. PP 545545 - 0005 ISSN 1034-1218 Brachychiton spectabilis- Guymer AUSTRALIAN SYSTEMATIC BOTANY SOCIETY INCORPORATED Office Bearers President Dr. G.P. Guymer Queensland Herbarium ·Meiers Road INDOOROOPILLY Qld 4068 Tel. (07) 3896 9325 Fax. (07) 3896 9624 Vice President Secretary Treasurer Dr, T. Entwisle ·Dr. C. Puttock Dr. P.G. Wilson National Herbarium of Victoria Australian National Herbarium National Herbarium ofNSW Birdwood Avenue GP0Box_l600 Mrs. Macquaries Road · SOUTHYARRA VIC3141 CANBERRA ACT 2601 SYDNEY NSW 2000 Tel. (03) 9252-2313 Tel. (06) 246 5497 Tel. (02) 231 8158 Fax. (03) 9252 2350 Fax. (06) 246 5249 Fax. (02) 251 7231 Email [email protected] Email [email protected] Email peterwi @rbgsyd.gov.au Councillors · Robyn Barker Mr. J. Clarkson Botanic Garden of Adelaide Queensland Herbarium and State Herbarium P.O. Box I 054 North Terrace. · · MAREEBA Qld 4880 ADELAIDE SA 5000 Tef. (070) 928 445 Tel. (08) 228 2304 Fax: (070) 92 3593 Email clarksj @dpi.qld.gov.au Affiliated Society · Papua New Guinea Botanical Society Australian Botanical Liaison Officer Public Officer and Membership Officer Mr. R.O. Makinson AndrewLyne RoyalBotanic Gardens Kew Australian National Herbarium Richmond, Surrey. TW9 3AB. Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research CSIRO ENGLAND GPO Box 1600, Canberra ACT 2601 Tel. 44-181-940-1171 Tel. (06) 246 5508 · Fax. 44--181-332-5278 Fax. (06) 246 5249 Email [email protected] Email al @anbg.gov.au Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter86 (March 1996) 1 FROM THE PRESIDENT HANSJOERG EICHLER plant systematics. The Australian Systematics RESEARCH FUND Society will provide another voice for systematists in Australia. The research fund has sufficient resources· to provide several small research grants in 1996. MELBOURNE CONFERENCE: 29 The ASBS Council is working on the application SEPTEMBER TO 5 OCTOBER 1996 forms and procedures for operating the grants program. The 1996 annual meeting of ASBS will be held at the Melbourne Conference on The Scientific FORMATION OF AUSTRALIAN Savant in Nineteenth Century Australia: a SYSTEMATICS SOCIETY Celebration of the Life, Times and Legacy of Ferdinand von Mueller and the future of taxonomic research in Australia Beyond the The formation of this society occurred late Floras. Professor Pauline Ladiges will present last year. Mike Crisp's article on the background the Nancy Burbidge Memorial Lecture. and aims of this society is included in this newsletter. The ASBS is the oldest systematics society Gordon Guymer in Australia and has successfully promoted President, ASBS Inc ARTICLES CLADISTICS WORKSHOP Zealand, including not only botanists but also entomologists, zoologists and a mycologist. Jenny Hart School of Biological Sciences Most of the lectures and pracs were held in the The University of Sydney Faculties Teaching Centre, which was rather cold due to an industrial dispute and picket line at entrances to the campus preventing the The ASBS workshop "Cladistic Analysis: supply of goods (such as paper, the computers Morphological and Molecular" was held on the kept reminding us!) and the repair of the 25-29th September 1995 at ANU, Canberra. The building's heating system. workshop was convened by Mike Crisp, and Mike, John Trueman and David Morrison taught The lectures were well presented and well the course with assistance from Belinda Alvarez dispersed through the course, and were used to and Greg Chandler. The course had 34 teach the theoretical principles of phylogenetic participants from around Australia and New reconstruction for application to both 2 Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter 86 (March 1996) morphological and molecular data. John ourselves as the dubious and somewhat spoilt the illusion of a well prepared lecture by polymorphic outgroup. I have my doubts about pointing out that the time on the computer whether we took in the parts of the course screen in the overhead he was showing us was dealing with selecting characters with actually during lunchtime, less than an hour evolutionary meaning and assessing homology before. when creating this data set. This data set was presented to Mike, John and David at the BoZo The practical classes introduced several happy hour on the Friday afternoon before computer software packages for phylogenetic Coopers and Cladistics. However, there were analysis, including MacClade, PAUP, PHYLIP some mistakes in the original analysis and Hennig86. These classes were most presented, mostly mislabelling of states, caused enjoyable, enabling each of us to work at our own by hurriedly trying to assemble the data set speed and ask questions or for assistance. without attracting the attention of David However, when it came to experiencing Morrison, who was curious as to what we were Hennig86, many people were pleased to learn the doing in the corner of the computer room that command "yama" to quit. We were also Friday afternoon. Mike Crisp pointed out the introduced to some computer programs used errors, and I have corrected and rerun the with molecular data to align DNA or protein analysis. sequences. We had been encouraged to bring along and analyse our own data sets, which The data set consists of six taxa and enabled us to apply what we were learning to 18 characters which are provided below. Two data collected on organisms that we were minimal length trees were found in an familiar with. exhaustive search by PAUP and the strict consensus of the two trees is shown. The two To thank those who ran the course, we resulting trees differed in their positioning of thought we'd demonstrate the skills we had David Morrison. Further work to resolve this learnt and created a data set on the lecturers and discrepancy may wish to be undertaken in a demonstrators of the course, using future cladistics course. I------------------ Mike Crisp 1------------------+-----------------­ John Trueman I-------------------+------------------------------------­ Belinda Alvarez ---+--------------------------------------------------------­ David Morrison +--------------------------------------------------------­ Greg Chandler \--------------------------------------------------------- Outgroup Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter 86 (March 1996) 3 Data Matrix Mike David John Belinda Greg Outgroup Crisp Morrison Trueman Alvarez Chandler wears glasses yes no yes no no no City Canberra Sydney Canberra Canberra Canberra Sydney At Tilley's on no yes no no yes yes Thursday Loves Hennig no yes no/yes ? ? no 86 noise output lowest high low lowest medium medium wears tshirts yes no no no yes ? hair on head yes no no yes yes yes beard no yes yes no no no lecture yes no no ? ? ? advance preparation works on yes yes no no yes no plants has PhD yes yes yes no no no rides bicycle bicycle ? bicycle rollerblades no no/ rollerblades sloppy joe yes yes no no no no/yes has uni yes yes no no no no position former ASBS yes yes no no no no editors Mimosoideae Faboideae Mimosoideae ? ? Faboideae ? vs Faboideae no children children children children children no children I children sandshoes yes no no no yes yes/no 4 Austral. Syst. Bot. Soc. Newsletter86 (March 1996) COLLECTING IN COBOURG brownii, Eucalyptus miniata, and Pachynema PENINSULA, 1961 dilatatum. We covered about 44 miles during the day. On 16 July we drove to Murganella Creek in the middle of a large plain, and spent George Chippendale most of the day reconstructing a small 4 Raoul Place, makeshift bridge to get our three Landrovers Lyon, ACT 2606 across. We camped in the Melaleuca viridiflora community fringing the plain. Other plants During early 1961, while I was in the collected included Lobelia dioica, Limnophila herbarium at Alice Springs, officers of the brownii, Stylidium schizanthum, Xanthostemon Animal Industry Branch were planning a trip paradoxus, and Coldenia procumbens. Only to Cobourg Peninsula, so I was included to 13 miles travelled this day. collect plant specimens. There had been collections before, and these are listed in "Fauna Survey of the Port Essington District, On Monday 17th July, the aboriginals Cobourg Peninsula" (Div. Wildlife Res. Tech. decided to walk back to Oenpelli, and some time Paper No 28, 1974). Mostly, these collections after they left we saw fires, so we guessed are cited in Bentham's Fl. Aust (1863- 1878). they were firing the country as they walked. We The veterinary officers were interested in were to see the effects on our return trip. This capturing some of the feral animals which had day we passed through forests of Eucalyptus been abandoned in the area by an earlier tetradonta, the bark of which is used by British settlement at Raffles Bay. These animals aboriginals in bark-painting, E. confertiflora, included Timor ponies, banteng cattle and Acacia aulacocarpa, Xathostemon paradoxus, buffalo. and had lunch in the shade of the fringing Casuarina equisetifolia at Mountnorris Bay. On July 13 July 1961, with my assistant and Later we passed an old timber camp in a stand friend Des Nelson, I met Stock Inspector Arnold of Callitris intratropica, and only a few miles Baker at Pine Creek, and also Ron Withnall, further on we made camp on Buffalo Creek Crown Law Solicitor for the N.T., and Ralph Beach, opposite Croker Island. About 42 miles Demp from the Forestry and Timber Bureau. We were covered, and we had also collected the had refreshments and "discussions" at the Pine yellow-flowering Cochlospermum jraseri. On Creek Hotel, and somewhat later camped at the the beach sand we collected Euphorbia atoto, Mary River, which now forms a boundary of Tribulus cistoides, Vitex rotundijolia and Kakadu National Park. Next day we passed the Ipomoea pes-carprae subsp. brasiliensis. South Alligator River and Barramundie Creek, Behind the beach was a forest of Eucalyptus both now in the National Park, and later Red Lily papuana, and in a depression we collected the Lagoon, now apparently called Billabong, samphire Tecticornia australasica, Sesuvium where I collected the first specimen for the trip, portulacastrum.