Botanical Identification Service

THE INTRIGUING WORLD OF BOTANIC IDENTIFICATION

POISONS, CRIME AND CONSERVATION – IT’S ALL PART OF THE JOB FOR THE DEDICATED MEMBERS OF THE GARDENS’ BOTANICAL IDENTIFICATION SERVICE. DAVID CARROLL REPORTS.

Armed with just a trained eye and a filing cabinet full of dried specimens, botanical detectives Seanna McCune and Andrew Orme are charged with solving all manner of mysteries.

As the lead investigators of the Botanical Identification Service (BIS) their clients include everyone from police detectives and customs officials to veterinarians and even the humble home gardener. They also work closely with ecological consultants, who are required by law to confirm and disclose the identity of any species threatened by developments.

“Poisons are usually given priority,” says Orme, “followed by commercial projects and then those that shout the loudest about deadlines”.

Team leader, Botanical Information Botanist Kerry Gibbons, who took on the role less than a year ago, says the Gardens’ botanists have always been involved in identifying specimens, and junior colleagues often took turns to staff a general enquiries counter.

“Specimens that came through the mail would be arranged on a long bench, and after morning tea they would be divvied up according to people’s expertise,” says Gibbons, who also serves as the Gardens’ Flora Botanist. “It was an opportunity to discuss the specimens and sometimes do a bit of teaching.”

In the early 1980s, however, the decision was taken to create the BIS and appoint an Identification Botanist and a technical officer, with the latter role largely focused on administration and database management. Somewhere along the line the roles were essentially reversed, says Gibbons, and today technical officers McCune and Orme take the lead on identifying specimens.

McCune says that over the past 40 years the identification process has changed very little, with the team still relying almost exclusively on morphological features to identify the specimens they receive, as opposed to genetic information for instance. Once observations are made, “including the

‘We’ve been called upon to gather evidence in murders and sexual assault cases’

smallest details under a microscope”, they are manually compared with samples in various databases. All of which means the process still relies heavily on the skills and experience of the team’s technical staff.

Thankfully, experience is something the team has in abundance. McCune joined the BIS back in 1989, while Orme completed a three-year stint in the late 1990s before returning for good in 2009.

“Using DNA of samples sounds simple, but in reality, it is costly, takes time, and is only useful if you have something to compare it too,” says Gibbons. “That means the results need to be run through a comprehensive database of plant DNA, and that doesn’t exist, at least not yet.”

Given there are thousands of taxonomies that are native to or naturalised in New South Wales, she says it’s easier and more effective to refer to the Herbarium’s plant specimens, the BIS’ own set of reference specimens or the public reference library collection.

“These are really still our best scientific assets.”

Nevertheless, technology has helped in other ways.

“Using the internet, we can research information quickly and broadly, and it makes it easier to identify and contact

relevant scientists in order to draw on their expertise,” says Orme. “We can also email a good high-resolution image to them.”

In addition, research publications published online will include detailed descriptions, along with images, that help identify plants, particularly if the papers are describing new species.

Over the years the BIS has been involved in some fascinating cases.

“We’ve been called upon to gather evidence in murders and sexual assault cases,” says Orme. “We’ve helped identify prohibited drugs, and in one mind-boggling case we even worked with the Federal Police on counter terrorism.”

The pair also regularly find themselves helping veterinary labs explain livestock poisonings, working with authorities to examine potentially illegal land clearings or ensuring threatened species are not destroyed by major developments. By helping map the location of native and naturalised plants, their work can also guide conservation projects.

McCune says that every year the team identifies new species, and more often than not these new discoveries are actually made in the Gardens’ reference libraries, as scientists dip into the collection and chance upon species they find have been misidentified.

“We have also identified plants that were thought to be extinct. The best known would be the Wollemi Pine. I was on the desk when that was brought in to be identified, but we quickly realised its significance and passed it on to the Gardens’ scientific team.”

The general public are welcome to send in plants for identification, but there are clear rules explaining how samples must be delivered.

“We like stuff to be fertile – either flowering or fruiting,” says McCune. “So

‘We have also identified plants that were thought to be extinct.’

just sending one leaf, or sending a blurry image of a plant, makes it very hard. We are very reluctant to give a positive definitive identification on images.”

There are also some things the BIS won’t touch. For instance, it doesn’t deal with fungi, root identification, plant pathogens and disease, and general enquiries related to poisonings.

Other than that, if you have a botanical mystery that needs solving, get in touch via the Gardens’ website.

Photos: David Carroll The Botanical Identification Service team: Dr Kerry Gibbons, Andrew Orme and Seanna McCune