Newsletter of the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Volume 9 No. 1 ISSN 1027-4286 September 2004 Establishing National Botanical Gardens in South Africa Documenting the threatened plants of southern Africa: A small price paid Living plant collections: Threatened Plants Programme SABONET News Vol. 9 No. 1 September 2004 1 c o n t e n t s Book Reviews 54 Biodiversity Prospecting & ON OUR COVER: Aerial view of Kirstenbosch Access and Benefit Sharing National Botanical Garden, South Africa. (Photo: Hi-Shots, South Africa) 55 Easy guide to indigenous shrubs Cover Stories 56 Illustrated guide to the 5 Establishing National wildflowers of northern South Botanical Gardens in South Africa Africa 14 Documenting the threatened plants of southern Africa: A small price paid 37 Living plant collections: Threatened Plants 14 Documenting threatened plants Programme Regulars Features 3 Editorial 18 Cyperaceae in Namibia 4 Letters to the Editors 29 Plant taxonomy in the 21st 34 New books from SABONET Century: meeting users’ needs in Lesotho 57 The Paper Chase 32 Researchsmith garners 68 Regional News Update awards far and wide 80 E-mail addresses 33 Succulent flora of southern Africa worthy of wonder Forum Botanicum 18 Cyperaceae 56 2002 Compton Prize awarded to trio 57 South African Association of Botanists thanks SABONET 5 Establishing Botanical Gardens 37 Threatened Plants Programme 29 Plant taxonomy: Lesotho 34 New Books from SABONET 2 SABONET News Vol. 9 No. 1 September 2004 letter from the editors Newsletter of the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Editors Yolande Steenkamp EDITORS: YOLANDE STEENKAMP & CECILIA DE VOS BELGRAVER Cecilia de Vos Belgraver Design and Layout he Project is slowly winding down with a scheduled closure date of 31 March 2005, Antoinette Burkhardt Tand accompanying this “slow-down” (relatively speaking) there have been some Vanilla Design Studio changes at the Regional Office yet again. (27) 83 635-1446 Reproduction and Printing Elsabé Malan (former Admin & Finance Officer for the SABONET Regional Office) has Capture Press left SABONET to take up a position with a small auditing company. The Regional Co- (27) 12 349-1802 ordinator has taken up a permanent position in the National Botanical Institute’s Data Section as “PRECIS Information Co-ordinator”, but will still be managing the SABONET Subscriptions Project until its closure. With the closure of the Project looming so soon in the future, [email protected] no new Admin & Finance Officer will be appointed. Website www.sabonet.org You may have noticed that for the first time in years, Marthina Mössmer is not one of the editors of SABONET News. No, she has not left SABONET, but as Editor-in-Chief of Submission of Manuscripts the SABONET Report Series, she has been kept very busy during the past few months Marthina Mössmer [email protected] with numbers in the Report Series coming out every few weeks. Since January this See Instructions to Authors on page 4. year, seven Reports have been published (read more about them on page 34), with about twelve more expected in the next few months. Since Report No. 25 “Herbarium SABONET News is the official newsletter Essentials”, rolled off the presses in July 2004, people have been raving about it, and the of the Southern African Botanical Diversity Regional Office is being flooded with requests for extra copies. If you haven’t received Network (SABONET). one yet and think that you will be able to use it, order it from [email protected]. But hurry! Stocks are limited. This issue of SABONET News is dedicated to the Threatened Plants Programme that SABONET has established in participating botanic gardens in eight of the ten coun- tries. Read the stories in the Living Collections section on pages 37 to 54. There is also news from Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and the Regional Office and three very SABONET interesting articles, one on establishing National Botanical Gardens in South Africa, South African National Biodiversity Institute Private Bag X101 one on the fascinating diversity of succulents in southern Africa, and a species list of Pretoria 0001 the Cyperaceae of Namibia. SOUTH AFRICA Tel.: (27) 12 804-3200 The next and final issue of the SABONET News is scheduled for January 2005. We Fax: (27) 12 804-5979/3211 are planning to dedicate it to reports on Important Plant Areas, and Centres of Plant Endemism and Diversity on the southern African sub-continent, so please do send in SABONET News is published twice a year your contributions! and is distributed free of charge. Printed on acid-free Dukuza Enjoy your reading! Plus Matte coated paper, which —Yolande Steenkamp & Cecilia de Vos Belgraver contains a minimum of 60% bagasse—the residue remaining after sugar has been extracted from sugar cane. This newsletter was made possible through sup- port provided by the GEF/UNDP (SABONET is a GEF Project implemented by the UNDP) and the Regional Centre for Southern Africa, Gaborone, Botswana, US Agency for International Development (Plot no. 14818 Lebatlane Road, Gaborone West, Extension 6 Gaborone), under the terms of the Grant No. 690-0283-A-00-5950. The opinions expressed in the newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the US Agency for International Development, the GEF/UNDP, the SABONET Steering Committee or the National Working Groups. “Breaking News! The National Botanical Institute has officially changed to the South African National Biodiversity Institute on 1 September 2004”. SABONET News Vol. 9 No. 1 September 2004 3 letters to the editors [email protected] ust a line to thank you all at SABONET any thanks for your latest publica- hank you very much for sending the Jfor SABONET Report Series No. 22, Mtion, the herbarium users manual, TSouthern African Plant Red Data which is greatly appreciated and such and other recent publications received Lists Database on CD-ROM, as well as a valuable compendium. Because I had from you. for sending SABONET News regularly, managed to pay a short visit to Aburi when which is always a great pleasure to read. en route to Nigeria in 1971, I was especially I congratulate the team which compiled Both publications are a valuable source of interested in the coverage for West Africa. this excellent manual, which should play information for our work. It’s especially interesting to read about the a valuable part in stimulating interest mutual relationship between Limbe and in botanical exploration and collecting. —Dr Uwe Schippmann North Carolina. I especially appreciate the sections on Bundesamt für Naturschutz treating difficult material, and regret I did Konstantinstrasse110 —Jim Chapman not have this when I started collecting in 53110 Bonn 11 Koromiko Crescent the 1960s. R.D.I, Lyttelton hanks for the terrific Herbaria in SAB- New Zealand —Mike Bingham TONET countries. SABONET should be Lusaka able to sell copies to every botany student [email protected] in the world and to a lot of amateurs be- hank you very much for the latest ex- e have just received a copy of your sides. And even to professional botanists, Tcellent publication in your SABONET Wwonderful ‘Herbarium essentials’. like me. I am really impressed with its Report series. ‘Herbarium essentials’ is We will review it in our publications. comprehensive, useful, well-illustrated quite magnificent and will not only en- coverage. It’s a classic already. hance the efficacy of the local herbarium, I can imagine that this publication would but also prove to be a most useful teach- be very useful for many institutions. —Dr Fay Robertson ing tool. PO Box CH 385 —Etelka Leadlay Chisipite —Rodney Moffett (Prof.) BGCI Harare Qwaqwa Campus 199 Kew Road, Richmond Surrey Zimbabwe University of the Free State TW9 3BW Email: [email protected] South Africa Email: [email protected] just opened an envelope containing the book Herbarium Essentials, and I must say that I am truly impressed. So im- I pressed, in fact, that I was inspired to write an email congratulating everyone involved in this fine publication. Over the years, I’ve come to expect the highest-quality output from SABONET, but this recent publication raises that level. The design, layout and content are all superb—what a marvelous resource it will be—not only in Africa but elsewhere as well. It’s one of those books that you just want to keep dipping into, since the information is presented in an attractive and accessible way. My major activities involve the computerization of herbaria (and living collections), and so I was particularly interested to read the section on compterization (pp 45-46). It is quite a short section on a large and complex topic and I was wondering if there are plans to expand on this important topic at any point in the future? Please do send my remarks on to the editors and others involved in this publication, and keep up the good work! —Kerry S. Walter, BG-BASE Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Inverleith Row Edinburgh EH3 5LR Scotland, UK Email: bg-base@rbge instructions to authors 1) Manuscripts should preferably be in 4) If possible, include colour slides, black- 7) Look at the most recent issue of SABONET English. and-white photographs, or line drawings News for stylistic conventions. 2) If possible, text should be sent in electronic to illustrate articles. If you want to submit 8) SABONET News holds the right to edit any format via e-mail or on a stiffy disk and scanned images with your article, scan them received copy. should be in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, at 300 dpi and save as TIF or JPEG files. 9) Manuscripts should be sent to Marthina or Rich Text Format.