Botany Curator Leon Perrie writes about why kōwaowao, hound’s tongue fern has had a scientific name change from Microsorum pustulatum to Lecanopteris pustulata.Read more
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
Filmy ferns add a delicate, enveloping beauty to New Zealand’s forests. Most are translucent, with fronds only one or a few cells thick. Most are small, but they can carpet large areas of the ground or be prominent on the trunks of trees. New Zealand is home to 31 speciesRead more
New Zealand has a new tree fern – kind of. Te Papa Research Fellow Patrick Brownsey and I have recently recognised a subspecies within the stumpy tree fern, tuokura, Dicksonia lanata. The new name is Dicksonia lanata subspecies hispida. It is only kind of a new tree fern, as it wasRead more
A key principle in the scientific classification of animals, plants, and other living things is that the system of scientific names reflects their relationships. This is because there is only a single evolutionary history, and it provides an objective basis by which to name life. As we learn more aboutRead more
I’m a co-author of a just-published scientific paper examining the evolution and classification of the Arthropteris climbing ferns. The paper was a real international collaboration, involving authors from China, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. It is unclear how many species there are of Arthropteris – probably somewhere betweenRead more
I recently co-authored a paper with Barbara Parris that investigated the scientific classification and naming of New Zealand’s strap ferns. If you’ve spent any time in New Zealand’s forests, you will have almost certainly seen the common strap fern. It has simple, undivided fronds up to 20 cm long, butRead more
I’d like to introduce a new species of New Zealand fern, Gleichenia inclusisora. Our scientific description was published just before Christmas 2012. The recognition of this species edges the number of native New Zealand fern and lycophyte species nearly to 200. Abstract of paper describing Gleichenia inclusisora. Email me ifRead more
