Past Events

Life in your backyard: bringing the social into the natural sciences

A talk by Prof. Katharine Dickinson, Department of Botany, University of Otago. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.

Field trip to Mt Cargill

There is a swampy clearing in a pine plantation below and to the north of the summit of Mt Cargill. This area has not been investigated botanically and appears to contain a number of uncommon plants in the Dunedin area. Plants found there include Coprosma decurva, Aciphylla scott-thomsonii, Thelymitra cyanea and Forstera tenella. Meet at Botany Department car park at 9.00 a.m.

Winning Botany Colloquium talks

This evening of talks will be presented by the winners of the prizes at the Botany Postgraduate Research Colloquium. The student speakers will talk about their research, which will almost certainly be on a diverse and interesting range of topics. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.

Physiological responses of macroalgae under high PAR, UVR and elevated temperature

A talk by Dr Michael Roleda, Marsden Post Doctoral Fellow, Department of Botany, University of Otago. A Department of Botany Seminar. Note special time and venue: At the Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs, corner of Union and Great King Streets).

Cancelled: Weekend field trip to Thisbe Stream, Catlins

Note: This trip has been cancelled due to inclement weather. Hopefully it will be able to run early in 2011. We will stay at Thisbe Stream where there is a six bed hut and good sites for camping. We will see beech forest with Peraxilla mistletoe, and frost hollow vegetation with the shrubs Melicytus flexuosus and Coprosma elatirioides. If we are fortunate we may see mohua; not botanical but really cool little birds. Contact Leader Graeme Loh by Wednesday 22 Sept.

Pathways of connectivity in marine landscapes

A talk by Assoc. Prof. Glenn Hyndes, Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. A Department of Botany Seminar. Note special time and venue: At the Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs, corner of Union and Great King Streets).

9th Annual Geoff Baylis Lecture. Plant taxonomy: how can we tell if we're wrong?

The 9th Annual Geoff Baylis Lecture will be presented by by Prof. Philip Garnock-Jones, School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington. Plant taxonomy is practiced in many different ways by different taxonomists, but are there any unifying or general principles that can be applied? In this lecture, I'll look at the two main types of problems that taxonomists try to solvethe delimitation of species and the classification of those species into higher-ranked taxausing examples from groups I'm familiar with. For example, in Veronica, we have new taxonomic revisions of all the New Zealand groups, but we still don't understand the relationships of many of the species, especially among the shrubby hebes. Forty years ago, we had an outline by Lucy Moore of how the different groupings might be related to each other, a new Flora treatment that included a long list of species of uncertain status (e.g., Hebe biggarii), a suspicion that hebes hybridise more than is quite decent, and an almost complete list of chromosome numbers that suggested new understandings at species and higher ranks. Field work throughout New Zealand, new data from chemistry and genetics, and the framing of questions as explicit hypotheses have helped a group of us answer some of the questions, but many puzzles remain to keep the next generation of taxonomists busy. Lecture at 6 pm in Burns 1, with nibbles and drinks from 5:15 pm in the concourse outside the Castle lecture theatres

Botany 4th year research presentations

Presentations of students completing BTNY480/490 Research Projects in the Department of Botany.

12:00 noon. James Wang: Tree Species effects on canopy transpiration in two Catlins forests

12:20 pm. Vickey McGimpsey: Mauve the mysterious flower colour pigment in Euphrasia dyeri

12:40 pm. Suli Teasdale: Difference in Cortinarius communities for three forest types: Pinus radiata, Nothofagus spp., and Kunzea ericoides

1:00 pm. Ella Hayman: Does foliage of Thymus vulgaris (Labiatae) inhibit the germination of native shrum and grass species?

1:20 pm. Sharon McKenzie: Investigating the identity of Hypochoeris Mosaic Virus

Note special time and venue: At the Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs, corner of Union and Great King Streets).

Energetic requirements for growth of the deep-water red seaweed Anotrichium crinitum

A talk by Dan Pritchard, Department of Botany, University of Otago. A Department of Botany Seminar. Note special time and venue: At the Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs, corner of Union and Great King Streets).

Rare and Threatened Lichens

Illustrated talk by Allison Knight. Last year's lichen talk concentrated on the common and widespread lichens that Allison is illustrating in her introductory Field Guide. This year she will talk about some of the rare, threatened, uncommon and little known lichens that the Threatened Lichen Group are in the process of publishing. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.

Toxic cyanobacteria in New Zealand: from toxin regulation to national regulation

A talk by Dr Susie Wood, Cawthron Institute, Nelson. A Department of Botany Seminar. Note special time and venue At the Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs, corner of Union and Great King Streets).

Lichen talk, workshop and Field trip

A combined BSO—Orokonui Ecosanctuary event. Allison Knight will share her enthusiasm for lichens and introduce some local species that will feature in her illustrated introductory field guide to lichens. Bring handlens, camera, lunch and suitable outdoor gear and any lichens you'd like to find out more about. The workshop is free to BSO members but bring $15 for entry into the Ecosanctuary and maybe a bit extra for hot food and drinks at the café there. Meet 9 am at the Botany Dept car park to car pool or 10 am at the Ecosanctuary information centre. Places limited. Bookings essential. To book phone Orokonui Ecosanctuary (03) 482 1755. BSO contact is Allison Knight, (03) 487 8265, alli_knight@hotmail.com

Botanical "Show and tell" evening

Members are invited to bring along botanical items (for example, photographs and slides, plants, books, seeds—anything botanical that you'd like to show others!) for a show and tell evening. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.

Fabulous Ferns: Orokonui Ecosanctuary fundraiser

Cost $39. All proceeds to biodiversity protection in the Ecosanctuary. An illustrated talk and field excursion looking at fabulous ferns with John Steel from the University of Otago Botany Department.

Saturday field trip to Watsons Beach

Watsons Beach in south Otago has some of the most extensive coastal turfs in Otago that include populations of the uncommon herbs Lepidium tenuicaule, Myosotis pygmaea and Ranunculus recens. There's also relict coastal shrubland, sedgeland and lichen encrusted rocks. We'll wander north towards Quoin Point so dress for exposed coastal conditions. Leave from the Botany Department carpark at 10 am.