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
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
A new tree fern – or an unexpected hybrid?
2019-05-27
In 2015, ecologists Chris Stowe and Claire Newell found a strange fern during a vegetation survey in Whirinaki Forest, in the eastern North Island. They sent a frond to Te Papa’s fern experts Leon Perrie and Patrick Brownsey, who were also puzzled. This fern was clearly a Dicksonia tree fern but didn’t match any known species. Was it a new species?Read more
How a retirement hobby has led to an expert eye for liverworts
2019-05-20
Te Papa research associate Peter Beveridge (87) is having a very busy retirement. He recently described a new species of liverwort. Te Papa science researcher Lara Shepherd talked to Peter about how he came to be interested in these fascinating tiny plants.Read more
New Zealand gains a fern genus named after the Chinese imperial guard, Hiya
2018-10-12
Botanist Leon Perrie recently posted about the desirability of minimising taxonomic name changes. He writes here about the need to change the name of a fern to reflect its newly discovered evolutionary relationships.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