Context Given the effort and resources that go into collecting and maintaining seed collections, it is crucial that we maximise their usefulness. Conservation, restoration and research rely heavily on good quality collections in order to establish new populations, create habitat, minimise extinction and address scientific questions. Aims Although seed viability, excellent metadata and genetic representativeness make for good quality collections, we provide 10 detailed reasons why the maintenance of separate maternal lines further increases the quality and usefulness of seed collections. Key results Maternal line seed collections can accommodate new information, this is especially important given the increasing longevity of seed collections. For example, maintaining separate maternal lines facilitates accommodation of taxonomic changes, minimises the impact of erroneous plant identifications, and facilitates separation of polyploid races, hybrids and inappropriate lineages. Separate maternal line collections also facilitate better estimates of the genetic diversity captured, and consequently better inform conservation translocations and the establishment of conservation gardens and seed orchards. Separate maternal line collections can also expedite breeding for specific traits, such as disease resistance or other selective challenges that impact on biodiversity conservation. New seed microbiome data show how only some maternal lines contain pathogenic fungi, reminding seed collectors and collections managers that contamination can be better contained by keeping each maternal line separate. Conclusions and implications Maintaining separate maternal lines is a simple and effective way to increase the value of seed collections for multiple applications.
In this article, we describe our students-as-partners process for bringing undergraduate and academic staff together to develop a mobile application (app) - CampusFlora - for use across our campuses. Our project at the University of Sydney, Australia, was conceived as a way to improve the botanical literacy of biology students by engaging undergraduates to develop online maps of plant locations coupled with information relevant to biology curriculum. Through continuous improvements to the CampusFlora app system, we have expanded the user-base well beyond the life science student cohorts and now offer content that embraces cultural competence and organisational health initiatives. We offer reflections from student and staff partners on the project that highlight the value of the students-as-partners approach, and the potential value of establishing student partnerships across disciplines, across institutions, and into the community at large.
Molecular evidence supports the transfer of Conoscyphus Mitt. from Lophocoleaceae to Acrobolbaceae, which is unexpected on the basis of morphological evidence and further disrupts the morphological circumscription of Acrobolbaceae. Conoscyphus differs from other Acrobolbaceae in possessing a stem perigynium and a conspicuous perianth that forms a tube, large underleaves that produce rhizoids in a fascicle from the underleaf disc, and shoots that grow inverted when hanging free from the substrate. However, Conoscyphus shares with other Acrobolbaceae granular brown oil bodies, a multistratose capsule, absence of terminal branching and papillose leaf cell-surface ornamentation. To reflect the morphological differences, particularly in post-fertilisation reproductive structures, between Conoscyphus and other members of the family, we retain subfamily Conoscyphoideae and transfer it to Acrobolbaceae.
Recent molecular evidence supports the transfer of two Australian endemic species, Austrocynoglossum latifolium (R.Br.) R.R.Mill and Cynoglossum suaveolens R.Br., to the genus Hackelia Opiz as H. latifolia (R.R.Mill) Dimon & M.A.M.Renner, comb. nov., and H. suaveolens (R.Br.) Dimon & M.A.M.Renner, comb. nov. Hackelia latifolia comprises two morphological entities that, although sharing the procumbent-prostrate habit and production of elongated internodes and frondose bracts in the inflorescence, differ in a range of qualitative and quantitative micro-morphological characters. Hackelia latifolia has few, widely spaced, thorn-like trichomes on stems, a glabrous abaxial lamina surface, and mericarps with free glochids densely and evenly distributed over the outer surface, and a rectangular cicatrix at the mericarp apex, which is beaked. The other entity has many densely packed cellular trichomes on the stems, trichomes on the abaxial leaf lamina, and mericarps with a wing formed by basally connate glochids, and a triangular cicatrix located centrally on the inner mericarp surface. For the latter, we propose the new species Cynoglossum torvum Dimon & M.A.M.Renner, and by implication suggest that H. latifolia is polyphyletic as previously circumscribed. Whereas H. latifolia s.s. is widespread along the south-eastern coast of Australia from Tasmania to south-eastern Queensland, Cynoglossum torvum is restricted to the tablelands of north-eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland. We compare C. torvum with the other Australian Cynoglossum L. species, C. australe R.Br., confirm previous observations of variation in mericarp morphology, and suggest that further investigation to resolve species circumscription is required given this variation.
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