Ecology of Indonesian Papua Part One. Andrew J. Marshall
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Government: Bulolo, Konedobu
Other herbaria also came into being in PNG to meet particular needs, both within (see below) and outside of the government.
In 1957 the forerunner of the Forestry College at Bulolo was established within the Department of Forests and, with teaching an imperative, an herbarium was developed (with contributions by J. J. Havel, H. Streimann (later in Canberra), A. Kairo, A. Gillison, R. J. Johns, B. Conn, A. Hay (both presently in Sydney), La-wong Balun, and others). In recent years the College has moved into the higher education sector (under PNGUT at Lae). Active collecting has been carried out in the Wau-Bulolo region (for which in 1983 Streimann published a checklist of the lichenized fungi, bryophytes, and higher plants) and elsewhere.
At the adjacent Forest Research Station work in forest pathology commenced about 1969; the fungus herbarium started there currently has the best local collection of macrofungi. Contributors included J. Simpson and F. Arentz. In the 1980s this unit moved to Lae when the units of the Research Station were absorbed into FRI. Another of the Station’s staff, the silviculturalist N. Howcroft, likewise moved but continued his considerable side interest in Orchidaceae (notably the ground-dwelling Spathoglottis).
At Konedobu, the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, Stock, and Fisheries (DASF; later the Department of Primary Industry (DPI) and, from the mid-1980s, Department of Agriculture and Stock (DAS)), a Plant Pathology her-barium was begun about 1955. It was built up largely by Dorothy E. Shaw and more recently has been under G. R. Kula. Its contents consist largely of pathogenic microfungi, but small collections of other thallomorphic plants are also held.
Nongovernmental Institutions
At the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), the herbarium was started in 1968 by R. Robbins and M. Pulsford but from 1971 was greatly enlarged by Frodin (until 1985) with contributions from others (including A. Millar, A. Gebo, J. Powell, C. Huxley, J. Dodd, I. Johnstone, G. Leach, and P. L. Osborne). In 1978 the herbarium was badly damaged by an accidental fire, but most collections were saved. New facilities were constructed during 1983–1984 as part of a complex known as the Natural Science Resource Centre. A principal aim was (and is) the study and documentation of the distinctive seasonal flora of the Port Moresby region (including the already-mentioned offshore island of Motupore), but research into other areas was also carried out including mangroves (including a manual), seagrasses, ant-plants (Rubiaceae), and freshwater aquatic macrophytes (again with publication, in 1985, of a manual by Leach and Osborne). After Frodin’s departure, H. Fortune Hopkins was (through 1990) lecturer-in-charge, continuing among other activities work on the Motupore florula, published jointly with Menzies (see below) in the mid-1990s. In the latter part of that decade (following completion of his PhD), O. Gideon took up this post, transferring from Lae. Technical staff—most of whom also collected—have included A. Gebo, K. Naoni, A. Vinas, M. Kuduk, and P. Piskaut, and many students similarly contributed. Undergraduate courses in plant diversity continue to be taught.
A herbarium was also set up at the University of Technology (PNGUT) by R. Johns after his accession to the professorship of forestry, the full degree course of which was taught there from 1980. This served as a depository for vouchers from forestry plots and vegetation studies as well as a teaching resource. Subsequently it came under P. Siaguru.
Outside Expeditions
In the three decades after World War II, numerous externally-funded botanical expeditions were conducted. With most was associated, as already indicated, the Division of Botany, where original or duplicate sets of their collections have been deposited (though in a few cases these are also, or only, at UPNG). The largest undertakings incorporating botanical work were the four later Archbold Expeditions (1953–1964), on which Brass was botanist for the first three and Hoogland for the last, and the several CSIRO land surveys (mostly 1953–1969; for both, see section on Integrated Expeditions, above) but there were many others, principally from Europe. Some comprised a single individual who might make Lae a base and run field trips from there over several months to a few years.
Of particular interest for some of the external expeditions were, not unnaturally, the high mountains; and in general the montane flora with its distinct Gondwanan affinities was attractive (and now more accessible). In 1956 Hoogland and Pullen worked on Mt Wilhelm (first named, as already indicated, by Zöller in 1888, but only later ascertained as the highest in eastern New Guinea), where they were joined by Womersley and Galore (LAE). Their collections were the first of any real extent to be made on this peak (in 1970 the subject of a florula, and where for a time ANU maintained a field station). In 1957 R. C. Robbins worked on vegetation on Mts Wilhelm, Hagen, and Giluwe, and, also in 1957, J. C. Saunders was in the Kubor Mts. Several mountains in the Eastern Highlands and Simbu were visited by Brass in 1959 with the Sixth Archbold Expedition, while in 1964 Hoogland climbed high into the Saruwageds with the Seventh Archbold Expedition. In 1960 Hoogland, Schodde, and Robbins worked on Mt Sugarloaf (west of Mt Hagen); in 1961 Hoogland and Darbyshire worked in the Torricelli Mts, and in 1966 Hoog-land and Craven spent some time in the Hunstein (also known as Sumset) Range—making the first plant collections there since Ledermann.
By the 1980s such expeditions, along with those of locally-employed scientists, had covered most parts of the country; but such was the terrain as well as issues of access that many gaps still remained; also, the unusual flora present over some substrates was only gradually recognized for what it was. Moreover, a number of areas worked by German collectors before 1914 had never been revisited. In the last two decades, there has been some gap-filling—particularly under outside sponsorship and often as part of more general bioinventories.
A byproduct of the CSIRO botanical work was an extensive card file (maintained through 1968) of taxa in the New Guinea flora with literature references compiled by Hoogland (CSIRO, Canberra; two copies exist in book form—one in FRI, Lae). It has, however, yet to be included in a database or even digitally imaged in the way that the large Hu card index for China at Harvard has been. But for the most part the very substantial botanical collections were not worked up into separate reports but simply have joined the general stock drawn upon for Flora Malesiana, its precursors, and individual revisions. Very many remain to be documented, with some of them as-yet-undescribed novelties. A large proportion of the distributed collections has been entered into databases, but as part of other projects.
Other Collectors
C. R. Stonor, in the course of his ornithological work, in 1948–1949 collected plants on Mt Hagen and Mt Wilhelm (Edinburgh). In 1954 H. S. McKee collected in the Wahgi Valley (Brisbane, Lae). In 1955, in continuation of his long expedition in western New Guinea, P. van Royen collected at Bulolo, the Bulldog Track south of Wau, Lae, and near Port Moresby (Leiden). From 1958 (continuing until 1979) Dr D. Carleton Gajdusek (National Institutes of Health, United States) collected plant and animal material as vouchers for food and drugs in the Eastern Highlands and many other areas while studying the spongiform encephalopathic disease, Kuru (related to "mad cow," or BSE, and nvCJD), and related topics, for which he became a Nobel Laureate. In 1960 J. A. R. Anderson collected 22 numbers on Mt Wilhelm (Edinburgh) and in the same year F. R. Fosberg collected in the vicinity of Goroka, Lae, and Rabaul (USNM).
The relative trickle of the 1950s now turned into a flood, and substantial collections in all groups were made. In the first half of the 1960s P. van Royen (while on the LAE staff) collected with H. O. Sleumer on Mt Wilhelm and in New Britain (Sleumer particularly interested in Rhododendron), on Mt Wilhelm with the plant physiologist F. W. Went (then director of the Missouri Botanical Garden), and on the Huon Peninsula with S. Carlquist (RSA). The 1962 Noona Dan expedition (see section on Integrated Expeditions, above) made a considerable plant collection in the Bismarcks. In 1963, W. Vink (Leiden) and Pullen (CSIRO) collected on the Kubor Range, while Carlquist collected with Henty (LAE) at Mt Piora. F. Kleckham of DASF collected plants on Mt Strong; G. Rosenberg collected plants and insects on Mt Amungwiwa;