Summer scholars: Working side-by-side with students
2019-04-01
Every year, Te Papa partners with Victoria University in their Summer Research Scholarships initiative. Here, we introduce them and the projects they worked on.Read more
Why do scientific names change? Kiokio by any other name…
2018-08-31
What is an appropriate amount of change in our scientific classification of life? Botany Curator Leon Perrie ponders this using the kiokio and its fern relatives as an example.Read more
Searching in needles and haystacks for forget-me-nots
2018-08-20
Read about Botanists Heidi Meudt and Antony Kusabs epic 14-day forget-me-not field work adventure. Highlights include solving a plant identification mystery and finding a plant that hadn’t been collected in almost a century.Read more
Bush-bashing and bogs: Botanical hunting in the North Island
2018-06-19
In December 2017, Te Papa Botanist Heidi Meudt was on the hunt for some uncommon forget-me-nots in two very special places in the central North Island.Read more
How many species of the confusing shrub toropapa are disguised in the bush?
2018-05-14
Toropapa has been confusing botanists for over 100 years because they show extreme variation in leaf shape – even between plants considered to be the same species from a single location.Read more
What happens when you ask ornithologists to do botany
2018-03-06
Bird experts Colin Miskelly and Alan Tennyson recently returned from a research trip to the subantarctic Auckland Islands. Although their main aim was to study birds, Botany Researcher Heidi Meudt sent them on a separate mission – to collect a rare flower.Read more
Three New Zealand forget-me-nots discovered
2018-03-01
Three species of forget-me-nots new to science have just been formally described by Te Papa Botany Researcher Heidi Meudt and colleagues. Heidi introduces us to their names, what they look like, and describes what makes them unique. In the latest volume of Australian Systematic Botany, Heidi Meudt (Te Papa) and Jessie Prebble (ManaakiRead more
Cross-pollination experiments with one of New Zealand’s rarest trees
2017-12-07
When an incredibly rare native tree – the Bartlett’s rātā – flowered for the first time in a quarter-century, Botany curator Carlos Lehnebach was ready with his tweezers. Bartlett’s rātā is one of the most threatened trees in New Zealand. It’s also one of our rarest species, with only 13Read more
Hit rate high in high-country forget-me-not search
2017-09-25
Field work is a key part of scientific research at Te Papa. Each year, Research Scientist Heidi Meudt spends about three weeks in the field collecting specimens for her taxonomic research on native New Zealand forget-me-nots (Myosotis). In January 2017, she travelled to three main areas in northern South Island (Cobb Valley,Read more
Myosotis hunting in the deep south
2017-09-13
Field work is a key part of scientific research at Te Papa. Each year, Research Scientist Heidi Meudt spends about three weeks in the field collecting specimens for her taxonomic research on native New Zealand Myosotis. In December 2016, she recently traveled to the southern South Island and Stewart Island together with CollectionRead more
Kōwhai seeds on Kermadec and Chatham Islands’ beaches
2017-09-04
Recent research led by scientist Lara Shepherd used DNA sequencing to examine the origins of kōwhai seeds found on the beaches of the Chatham and Kermadec Islands.Read more
Te Papa scientist wins research award
2017-02-07
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 publishingRead more