The Queensland Herbarium is situated at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The Brisbane Botanic Gardens are located 7 km from the city of Brisbane in Toowong Queensland, at the foot of Brisbane's tallest mountain Mount Coot-tha Brisbane ( is the state capital of Queensland. Brisbane is the third most populous city in Australia and the most populous city of Queensland For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. It is part of Queensland’s Environmental Protection Agency. It is responsible for discovering, describing, monitoring, modelling, surveying, naming and classifying Queensland’s plants, and is the focus for information and research on the state’s plants and plant communities.
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Origins
The history of the Herbarium as an institution starts in 1855 with the appointment of Walter Hill as Superintendent of Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens, four years before Queensland separated from New South Wales as a colony. The Brisbane City Botanic Gardens is located at Gardens Point on the south-east of the peninsula of the Brisbane River adjacent to the central business district In 1859, with Separation, Hill was appointed Colonial Botanist as well as remaining Director of the Gardens, a position he was to hold until 1881.
At the time the main function of colonial botanic gardens was usually to facilitate the introduction of suitable economic plants, although native plants would be collected as well. However, Hill’s successor as Colonial Botanist was Frederick Manson Bailey, an established botanist already in charge of the herbarium at the Queensland Museum. Frederick Manson Bailey CMG, (8 March 1827 – 25 June 1915 was a botanist active in Australia, who made valuable contributions to the characterisation of the Bailey remained in office for 34 years, until his death in 1915, and energetically worked at building up the herbarium collection through correspondence, exchange and numerous expeditions throughout the state.
Since 1855 the herbarium collection has been housed in five different places, and its important botanical library in six. In 1998 the Herbarium moved to its current site within the Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. The number of plant specimens in the collection is over 650,000, mainly from Queensland.
Herbarium directors
Over the years, the Herbarium has gone through numerous departmental reorganizations and the officer in charge has been known by a variety of titles, from Colonial Botanist through Government Botanist, Director and Chief Botanist:
- 1855-1881 - Walter Hill
- 1881-1915 - Frederick Manson Bailey
- 1915-1917 – John Frederick Bailey
- 1917-1950 – Cyril Tenison White
- 1950-1954 – William Douglas Francis
- 1954-1976 – Selwyn L. William Douglas Francis ( 6 March 1889 - 2 January 1959) was a notable Australian botanist. Everist
- 1976-1990 – Robert W. Johnson
- 1990-1994 – (no head)
- 1994 - Gordon P. Guymer
References
Henderson, R. J. F. (2002). The Queensland Herbarium, 1855-2002. Queensland Herbarium: Toowong.
External links
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