Highlands (Paris). In 1964–1965 A. Clive Jermy (BMNH) led a BMNH/University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne expedition, initially working in the Finisterres—not visited since before 1914—and then in parts of the Highlands including Okapa, Mt Elandora (Krätke Range), and Mt Wilhelm as well as in the Herzog Ranges south of Lae. He was accompanied by T. G. Walker (who later collected in New Britain), A. Eddy, P. W. James, and M. E. Bacchus; for the Finisterres they were joined by Sayers (LAE) and Pullen (CSIRO). In the first serious undertaking of its kind, pteridophytes and non-vascular cryptogams were emphasized; but some 1,000 numbers of phanerogams were also obtained.
During 1962–1965 T. G. Hartley—connected to CSIRO but not part of the land survey program—was engaged in systematic sampling for alkaloids and other medicinal properties (an extension of similar work on the Australian flora); several localities, mainly in Morobe and Eastern Highlands, were visited (plants, CSIRO, Canberra). His final report, A Survey of New Guinea Plants for Alkaloids, appeared in 1973 (Lloydia 38: 217–319), covering, in taxonomic sequence, all his collections. (Later he joined the organization as a taxonomist in the present Australian National Herbarium and remains active in Malesian and Australasian taxonomic research.)
The opening of the new herbarium for LAE in early 1965 facilitated the work of outside visitors as well as the staff. In that year Gillison, van Royen, and Buderus (LAE) worked on Mt Biota, west of Mt Albert Edward, and B. Craig (later with the National Museum in Port Moresby) in the Star Mts. Later M. J. van Balgooy visited the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG), notably working on Mt Wilhelm (Leiden, his collections particularly fine). His trip was the first of a number organized from Leiden in pursuit of the notable high-mountain and alpine flora (eventually a major basis for van Royen’s Alpine Flora of New Guinea). Balgooy was followed in 1966 by C. Kalkman and W. Vink. With Gillison and Frodin (LAE) as local counterparts, they spent some three months in the Doma Peaks, followed by a short visit to the Telefomin area including part of the Hindenburg Range (Leiden, Lae). In August 1968, on a privately financed expedition, P. Woods (Edinburgh) and M. Black with Ridsdale (LAE) collected towards Murray Pass and on Mt Albert Edward, with Woods and Black specializing in orchids (Leiden; Lae). In 1969–1970 M. J. S. Sands (Kew) with Coode (LAE) worked on New Ireland, obtaining the first significant collections from its southern mountains (Kew, Lae).
The strong pace carried on well into the 1970s, the last decade of relatively liberal public funding for fieldwork. In 1970–1971 Y. Kobayashi collected lower plants on Mt Wilhelm, Mt Hagen, and at Oksapmin. In 1971 F. R. Mitchell (from the United States) came from Christchurch and collected plants in several areas (DSIR, Lae). In 1972 there was another substantial joint Leiden-Lae mountain massif expedition, this time to Mt Suckling; members included J. F. Veldkamp (Leiden), Stevens, Frodin (UPNG), N. Cruttwell, R. Pullen, F. Essig, and entomologists T. L. Fenner (DASF, Konedobu) and Gressitt (plants, Lae, Leiden; insects, Konedobu, Bishop, etc.). In 1973 M. Jacobs (Leiden) and K. Paijmans (CSIRO) collected on Mt Bosavi. In 1974 Craven and Croft worked on Mt Victoria. In 1975 the last of the major Leiden-Lae expeditions worked in the eastern Star Mts with Veldkamp and A. Touw (Leiden) and Barker, Conn and Croft from LAE (Leiden, Lae). In the same year Sands was again in New Ireland (with G. A. Pattison and J. J. Wood) as well as on the mainland (Kew, Lae), while a group of Japanese botanists led by S. Kurokawa and M. Inoue collected mainly cryptogams on Mt Albert Edward, the Wau area, and the Saruwaged Mts.
The Bishop Museum in 1976 collaborated with WEI in a primarily botanical expedition to several high mountain areas, with van Royen as leader (collections at Bishop and WEI). Visits were made to Mt Victoria (Royen, P. Kores, Frodin, R. T. Corlett); Mt Amungwiwa (Royen, B. Gagné); the Finisterres (Royen, Kores, B. Gagné, and Gressitt), and the Victor Emanuel Mts (Royen, Kores, B. and W. Gagné, Gressitt). The previous year, Corlett (ANU) also collected on Mt Giluwe, Mt Amungwiwa, and elsewhere, while the Gagnés continued to collect insects as well as plants in various places, 1976–1980 (with a tour to the Louisiades in 1979). In 1977 Veldkamp worked in the Western Highlands (Leiden).
Churchmen were also active, as in the past. Canon Norman E. G. Cruttwell (1916–1995) was an Anglican missionary from 1946 until the late 1980s. He was long stationed at Dagwa (eastern Papua) and from 1976 at Goroka, and developed a particular interest in rhododendrons and orchids. He visited, among other high spots, Mt Simpson in 1947 and 1968, Mt Dayman in 1951, 1974, etc., Mt Amata in 1959, and Mt Suckling (1972, see above). Outside Goroka he set up a high altitude botanic garden (Lipizauga Sanctuary) in the Gahavisuka Park—one of only two such parks in the country relatively near urban centers. Among other missionaries doing botanical work were the Rev. H. A. (Bert) Brown, based at Elema but also traveling to the Kunimaipa (near Mt Strong); and, until the end of the 1970s, Br. William Borrell at Kairiru off Wewak. In 1960 Fr. E. Borgmann (Mingende, Simbu Province) studied chromosome numbers of Mt Wilhelm plants, shortly thereafter publishing a landmark paper.
Anthropologists also made substantial plant collections. R. Bulmer (and Ian Saem Majnep, active in the Simbai District of Madang Province) were particularly notable for thoroughness of collecting and documentation; so, too, was N. Bowers (Western Highlands). This work has been further pursued by R. Gardner (Auckland) in more recent years. The geographers H. E. Street and H. Manner in 1967 collected in the Koinambe area of the western Bismarcks (Lae, Leiden). Medicinal plants were studied over a number of years by D. K. Holdsworth (UPNG), with some collections deposited in that herbarium (in 1991 he contributed to the first volume of a general work on PNG medicinal plants). In the 1960s, P. Eddowes made collections in connection with wood-anatomical work (Lae, UPNG).
With respect to particular plant groups, the collecting of orchids has been accomplished by—among others—A. Millar, P. Woods (see above), N. Howcroft (see above), T. Reeve (Laiagam), J. Dodd (see above), and, for a few years from 1988, P. O’Byrne (Port Moresby). O’Byrne’s field and related work soon led to his Lowland Orchids of Papua New Guinea (1994)—the first major work on the New Guinea orchid flora since those of Schlechter (an English edition of which was published in 1982), although Orchids of Papua New Guinea: An Introduction by Millar had first appeared in 1978. Over the last decade a full revision of New Guinea orchids has been under way under E. de Vogel (Leiden), resulting in a series of CD-ROMs; some groups were also studied at Kew. A major survey of Dendrobium by H. P. Wood appeared in 2006.
Henty focused in grasses, his work leading to A Manual of the Grasses of New Guinea (1969). R. E. Holttum also studied bamboos in addition to ferns (see below). B. Verdcourt carried out fieldwork in PNG in 1976 and 1978 under a U.K. government grant, resulting in Legumes of New Guinea (1979). In the early 1970s G. Argent (Edinburgh) worked on Musa; in addition to the assembly of a living collection of bananas in Lae his work led to a still-standard taxonomic revision. Sleumer specialized in rhododendrons, and before long rising interest in the Vireya group (to which all native species belong) and other mountain Ericaceae brought others: Woods and Black in the late 1960s (see above), H. F. Winters and J. J. Higgins (USDA) in several areas in 1970 (U.S. National Arboretum), and, in 1978–1979, K. Arisumi and associates (Kagoshima).
Croft and Johns have specialized in ferns, a group in connection with which (in addition to Jermy and Walker; see above) Holttum and B. Parris(-Croxall) also paid visits, the latter—now in New Zealand—collecting in several areas, 1971– 1972 and 1977 (Cambridge, Lae).
There were also other expeditions specializing in bryophytes and other plant and fungal groups (including lichenized fungi) as well as some resident activity in these groups (e.g. by Dorothy Shaw, Heiner Streimann, and Peter Lambley). A considerable proportion of their studies has been published, with all those named here producing annotated checklists in their groups.
In the 1960s and 1970s a number of botanists were aided in the field by Aubita Kairo, an assistant at Bulolo Forestry College, who could from sterile material recognize most genera of trees and who identified many in the WEI arboretum. Paul Katik, Artis Vinas (until 1979, then UPNG and Bulolo), Yakas Lelean, and (in earlier years) Michael Galore and John Koibua also assisted many (including the writer). Katik also acquired an ability to recognize almost all genera and many species of seed plants at sight, so ranking with Indonesian official (mantri) Nedi
