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
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