Most hen & chickens ferns in cultivation are the false hen & chickens fern, Asplenium ×lucrosum, rather than Asplenium bulbiferum.  The two are easily distinguished. Asplenium ×lucrosum is a sterile hybrid between Asplenium bulbiferum and Asplenium dimorphum.  The “×” preceding “lucrosum” indicates it is a hybrid. The two parent speciesRead more

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I am helping to organise the 2009 John Child Bryophyte Workshop.   Bryophytes comprise mosses, liverworts, and hornworts.  The Workshop also covers lichens, and it provides a great opportunity  to learn more about these fascinating plants.  Novices are welcome, with guidance provided for beginners. The workshop will be based at Pukeora Estate,Read more

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This amazingly comprehensive compilation of archival material relating to William Colenso’s botanical collections has just been published by the New Zealand Native Orchid Group. The material has been researched by Ian St George and includes unpublished work by the late Bruce Hamlin (former Curator of Botany at the National MuseumRead more

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Chris Horne of the Wellington Botanical Society recently sent me a fern frond they collected on one of their trips. Although the frond is small and lacking the diagnostic reproductive characters, I think it is the introduced holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum). It looks like the shining spleenwort (Asplenium oblongifolium), but theRead more

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Breaking news from our squid fix-it team – the work is complete and we are on track to reopen the colossal squid exhibition to the public from tomorrow 21 March 2009. Yesterday Robert Clendon our Conservator and Hutch Wilco, one of our exhibition preparators finished the last few tweaks to theRead more

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The rare, tetraploid maidenhair spleenwort  (Asplenium trichomanes subsp. quadrivalens) has only recently been rediscovered in New Zealand.  Several people have contacted me with possible additional sightings. As described by the Scoop website, Jack Ritchie had a maidenhair spleenwort self-sow on a rock used to construct a water feature in hisRead more

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More news from the squid tank. This morning I caught up with Robert Clendon the conservator who is looking after the work on the squid. Over the past few weeks we’ve been a bit concerned about the hooks on the tentacles and the arms. It looked as though the hooks could beRead more

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On Tuesday we started remedial work on the colossal squid and her tank. Things are going very well and to schedule. Yesterday we put up the barriers around the tank and lifted up the huge lid, using a forklift. We then drained most of the liquid out of the tank.Read more

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Science curator Leon Perrie explains ‘Punga’ is a quintessential Kiwi word used to refer to tree ferns or sometimes, more specifically, the trunks of tree ferns. Read more

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Botany has recently acquired a unique collection: a special group of calcified red algae known as the corallines. Coralline algae are abundant and ubiquitous throughout the world’s oceans, playing very important roles in marine ecosystems. The encrusting, or crustose, species can form unusual lumpy, warty-looking layers in the intertidal, sometimesRead more

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The maidenhair spleenwort is a spleenwort fern (Asplenium) that (supposedly) looks like a maidenhair fern (Adiantum, see below). The 600 or so of the world’s spleenworts are characterised by having their reproductive structures in lines away from the margins of their fronds’ undersides. Two maidenhair spleenworts occur in New Zealand.Read more

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In honour of Valentine’s Day this post will look at the wonderful world of courtship in the spider genus Latrodectus, more commonly known as the widow spiders. Readers of my previous post will recall this genus includes species such as the American black widow (Latrodectus mactans), the Australian redback (L.Read more

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