Botany Curator Heidi Meudt and colleagues have published a paper on what is special about the diversification of plants on islands, based on an investigation of the five best-studied island archipelagos, including New Zealand. Read on to find out more about their findings on the role of whole genome duplication – also known as polyploidy – in these island floras.Read more
Botany Curator Heidi Meudt and colleagues have formally described some new forget-me-nots in two published papers. Read on to learn their names, see what they look like, and discover more about them.Read more
Invasive species are one of the biggest threats to indigenous biodiversity. Another new weed for Aotearoa New Zealand has been reported by Botany Curator Leon Perrie and Geneticist Lara Shepherd. They ask whether we are doing enough to identify and control new weeds.Read more
In December 2020, Te Papa botanists Heidi Meudt and Antony Kusabs were in the field with three North Island iwi: Tamakaimoana, Ngāti Porou, and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. Worryingly, their search for rare forget-me-nots was unsuccessful. But their collaborative mahi struck a meaningful chord.Read more
Neither snow nor rain nor wind nor gloom of night stays these botanists. On a field trip to the South Island in January 2021, botanists Heidi Meudt and Antony Kusabs went to some extreme measures to collect forget-me-nots and other plants for our research and collections.Read more
How many species of plants and animals do you think you could find in only four days? This year Wellington participants in the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge found 1537 species! Our Researcher Lara Shepherd and Curator Botany Leon Perrie summarise what was discovered.Read more
Earlier this year, Te Papa botanists hunted for uncommon forget-me-nots in a very special place: Hikurangi, East Cape.Read more
Botany Researcher Heidi Meudt and Collection Manager Antony Kusabs made new collections of forget-me-nots and other plants at some stunning but remote South Island sites in Feb 2020. Take a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to do remote field work, and enjoy some of the rewards of their hard work!Read more
Botany Researcher Heidi Meudt is on a mission to find and make new research collections of all native New Zealand forget-me-nots. It can be a challenge to find some of them, particularly if we don’t know a lot about them or where they are to be found. Read more
A new DNA study by our researchers Rodrigo Salvador and Lara Shepherd revealed an unexpected land snail family across the Pacific.Read more
Te Papa holds a surprising treasure trove of tropical land snails in its collection. These snails have important biological data to share, but remained overlooked for the last century – until Rodrigo Salvador became interested…Read more
Head of Science Susan Waugh describes her trip to Phillip Island, a few kilometres offshore from Norfolk Island, to study the Kermadec petrel.Read more
