A fern connection between New Zealand offshore islands and mountains of Borneo and New Guinea
2021-03-22
Botany curator Leon Perrie describes how a New Zealand fern’s closest relative has turned up in an unexpected place.Read more
Is Coprosma grandifolia the scientific name for kanono, the largest-leaved Coprosma in New Zealand?
2021-03-04
Curator of Botany Leon Perrie discusses some of the rules governing scientific names, and explains why we can continue using the name Coprosma grandifolia – at least for now.Read more
He mātauranga huaota o Hikurangi – The botany of Hikurangi
2020-11-17
Earlier this year, Te Papa botanists hunted for uncommon forget-me-nots in a very special place: Hikurangi, East Cape.Read more
Photo essay: Remote field work collecting forget-me-nots in the South Island
2020-10-14
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
Finding ‘Data Deficient’ forget-me-nots
2020-09-01
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
Botanical field work with students
2020-08-17
Field work is a key aspect of biodiversity research to locate and collect new specimens to study. Botany Researcher Heidi Meudt took two South Island field trips in Dec 2018 and Jan 2019 with two university students in tow. Combining research and training is often a great way to get scientific research done – but was it successful this time?Read more
Coronavirus lockdown: How to work on Te Papa specimens when shut out of the building
2020-07-14
What if we all had to work from home for an extended period? Many of the Natural History staff could research and write papers from home, but what about the people whose jobs normally involved handling specimens every day?Read more
Captain Cook’s 150-year-old kōwhai specimens uncover Rapa Nui (Easter Island) secrets
2020-02-19
A single specimen of toromiro – a close relative of our own kōwhai and extinct in the wild – has been discovered in our botany collection, where it’s been kept safe for 150 years.Read more
A new liverwort species for Wellington
2020-01-13
A new species of liverwort has just been identified in Wellington and named after local amateur botanist Rodney Lewington (1935–2018). Botanist Lara Shepherd tells us more about liverworts and Rodney’s contribution to New Zealand botany.Read more
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