Congratulations to Pat Brownsey who has just been awarded the New Zealand Journal of Botany annual prize for 2016.

In even-numbered years, this prize is for “established researchers”. This is “awarded to a person who has made a sustained contribution to the journal during the last five years (regularly publishing and reviewing papers), and whose work has been widely cited by researchers in other journals during the same period”.

Pat specialises in the identification, naming, and classification of ferns. Among the more than 100 scientific peer-reviewed papers that Pat has co-authored, some 56 have been published in the New Zealand Journal of Botany, over nearly 40 years.

In receiving the award, Pat said that a major reason for choosing to publish in the New Zealand Journal of Botany was that it provided a platform for research relevant to a New Zealand audience.

These blog posts detail some of the research Pat has recently published in the New Zealand Journal of Botany:

• A new species of spleenwort fern, Asplenium lepidotum.
• A new species of filmy fern, Hymenophyllum pluviatile.

The following blog posts give an insight into Pat’s career at the museum, including being one of Te Papa’s most prolific collectors.

• Pat Brownsey and the cave-dwelling spleenwort.
• Milestones in Botany: Pat Brownsey past 10 000 specimens.

This is the second time in the last few years that Te Papa has been associated with the New Zealand Journal of Botany annual prize. In 2013, it was awarded as the “early researcher prize” to Jessie Prebble for a paper published from her MSc study, which was co-supervised by Te Papa’s Heidi Meudt.