Fact Sheet Updates
The NZPCN website offers a wide range of information the most popular of which are our Fact Sheets. Since our inception in 2003 we have been steadily populating these with information and images which we hope will assist in the field recognition, cultivation and conservation of our indigenous flora. Our priority has been to populate the threatened vascular plants first, and since 2003 we have worked hard to achieve this. Of the c.792 vascular plant taxa originally listed as “Threatened” and “Data Deficient” using the New Zealand Threat Classification System, completed fact sheets now exist for 524. Of course we have also provided fact sheets for those taxa which in the 2004 listing had been listed as threatened but had yet to be formally named, e.g., Gentianella scopulorum Glenny, or which have since been described and recognised as seriously threatened, e.g., Pseudowintera insperata Heenan et de Lange.Fact Sheets and images are now available for all 12 “Colonisers”. We are grateful to our friends and colleagues, especially John Barkla of the Department of Conservation, Otago Conservancy and Ewen Cameron curator of the herbarium, Auckland War Memorial Museum (AK) for assistance with providing some key images of these species. Of the 397 “Range Restricted” taxa we are pleased to have completed 120 fact sheets, finishing the entries for such genera as Anisotome, Callitriche, Carex, Elymus, Epilobium, Ranunculus and Senecio, but also finishing most of the ferns. In the process a further 60 fact sheets have been completed for “Non Threatened” indigenous species.
We have also started work on our threatened bryophyte listings. A few completed fact sheets are now available for species such as the “Nationally Critical Moss” Epipterygium opararense, and “Nationally Endangered Moss” Archidium elatum. We are delighted to have received images of some of these plants from Bill Malcolm and John Braggins.
Soon we hope to add another field providing the key literature on which many of the taxa descriptions are based.
Posted: 27/02/2007