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Book by Kelly La Farge

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In this resource pack you will find:
· Images and stories about the work of Science and Horticulture experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
· Resources and activities for Educators and children to explore

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By Sylvia Long and Dianna Hutts Aston

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The true story of Beatrix Potter, artist AND scientist!

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Practicing your skills of observing, comparing, and describing

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Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria is a centre of excellence for botanical research. We play a vital role in the study of Australia's plant and fungal flora, enriching our understanding of native biodiversity and its urgent conservation needs.

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This program supports outcomes from the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework

F - 2 Science 2.0:

VC2S2H01 - scientific knowledge is based on observations of the natural world using the senses, and scientific tools and instruments
VC2S2U01- plants and animals have observable features that can be used to group them in different ways
VC2S2I06 - observations, findings and ideas can be shared with others by using everyday and some scientific vocabulary

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Working together to collect plants in the wild

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Working together to collect plants in the wild

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Two of our Horticulture experts talk about their work

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State of the Ark: Herbarium to the Rescue

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Helping wildlife and wild places recover after bushfires

In the wake of the 2019/20 bushfires, expert teams from Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria embarked on an urgent recovery mission to salvage plants from the fire zone.

See how cutting-edge equipment at the National Herbarium of Victoria in Melbourne is supporting this important work, and learn how cuttings are grown in the nursery at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne for future seed orcharding and translocation efforts.

Visit our Victoria's bushfire emergency: Biodiversity response and recovery website to find out more and see how you can help our wildlife and wild places recover after the fires.

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Bushfire Recovery with Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

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In the wake of the 2019/20 bushfires, expert teams from Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria embarked on an urgent recovery mission to salvage plants from the fire zone. See how cutting-edge equipment at the National Herbarium of Victoria in Melbourne is supporting this important work, and learn how cuttings are grown in the nursery at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne for future seed orcharding and translocation efforts.

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Dr Pina Milne from Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria unveils some tiny treasures

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SERIES 32 | Episode 17

We meet Dr Pina Milne, a botanist who takes us into the fascinating, tiny and forgotten world of "bryophytes"; plants like mosses, liverworts and hornworts

"Bryophytes" is the word used to describe the group of plants that includes mosses, hornworts and liverworts. These oft-overlooked plants are so important in ecosystems, starting soil formation on barren terrain, maintaining soil moisture, and recycling nutrients in forest vegetation as it breaks down. Pina says they make great invertebrate habitat, and that's why you'll often find torn bryophytes "on the edge of walking tracks, it's birds looking for insects to eat because they know it's a rich resource".

These plants are the first step in plants emerging out of the primordial soup millions of years ago, from water onto land, and have barely changed since then. They're the amphibians of vegetation; completely dependent on water to reproduce. They share various features with their green algae ancestors. They don't have flowers or even seeds, instead reproducing via spores that need water to move and germinate. Australia has over 2000 species of bryophytes that occupy a diverse range of habitats, everything from lush rainforest to dry soil crusts in the desert. They can also be incredibly slow growing and can be hundreds of years old.

Pina works at the herbarium at the RBG Victoria and has a soft spot for bryophytes. She did her PhD on them, describing a new species growing in a highly saline environment ("they're very adaptable... you can find them in the arctic and in deserts"). A good example of the varied growing conditions bryophytes can persist in is on the oaks in the garden.

"They're hidden in plain view". "No one pays them attention. They're quite small in size, and that's the reason people forget about them. Even with fungi people notice them because they're bright and colourful...bryophytes don't do that".

Pina and Millie look at a bryophyte growing on the top of a pot on the nursery, and some forming on rocks. Bryophytes will often pop up in the top of pots, thriving with the extra moisture and water from reaching the plant. This bryophyte has evolved small cups (called gemma) to reproduce asexually. These cups contain small discs of reproductive tissue, that can directly grow new bryophytes. "As water pounds into these cups from raindrops or irrigation, it flicks out and can form a new liverwort".

Pina says identifying bryophytes often needs a microscope "and a compound one, not just a dissecting microscope". Differences can be as minute and intricate as the number of hairs on fruiting bodies. "After a while you start to get your eye in".

Pina says she'd like to see more people interested in bryophytes. "There's a very small number of people working on it in Australia...as these people retire, they're not being replaced by new young people coming through". "They're an important part of our flora and deserve to be studied and recognised". Bryophytes are the miniature underpinnings of entire ecosystems, and the very beginnings of all terrestrial plant life as we know it. They may be tiny, but they offer a fascinating world for anyone who wants to look a little closer.

Filmed on Boon Wurrung & Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country | Melbourne, Vic

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dr pina milne mosses liverworts hornworts

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We meet Dr Pina Milne, a botanist who takes us into the fascinating, tiny and forgotten world of "bryophytes"; plants like mosses, liverworts and hornworts "Bryophytes" is the word used to describe the group of plants that includes mosses, hornworts and liverworts.

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Tree expert, Arborist Jim Shugg, talks about trees at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

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SERIES 32 | Episode 04
Jane Edmanson visits Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens to learn how the arborists there care for the mature trees as they age.
Arborist Jim Shugg says the team has to balance allowing trees to follow their natural form with the need to allow for the access and safety of visitors.

Trees play a very important ecological role, Jim says, with characteristics that young trees don't have, such as hollows, fissures in the bark, complex canopies - and these make a wonderful habitat for a range of organisms.

Soil biome under old trees continues to increase with richness as the trees age

One of the old river red gums in the gardens features in an old photo from about 1875, when it was already a mature tree. It's called the Cockatoo Tree because its hollows have been used for nesting by Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos for decades.

A Cockspur Coral Tree near the Herbarium, possibly planted in the 1880s, has been pollarded each year - the branches cut back each year to growth points, which keeps the tree compact.

Older trees often start to decline from the top down and these can be 'retrenched' by reducing some of the top growth, mimicking what happens in nature. Engineering solutions can also be used - such as metal braces and ties to support the weight of larger branches.

An ancient White Oak in the garden recently broke apart due to old age, however there are plans to incorporate the fallen limbs into a new feature for the garden.

RBG Landscape Architect Andrew Laidlaw explained the plans for the timber, which include transforming the main stump into a sculptural piece and honouring the tree's legacy by creating seats for visitors from some of the remaining limbs. Garden beds with native grasses and existing daffodils will embrace the whole area.

* NB: Erythrina crista-galli can be an environmental weed in some parts of Australia

Filmed on Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country | Melbourne, Vic

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Jane Edmanson visits Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens to learn how the arborists there care for the mature trees as they age. Arborist Jim Shugg says the team has to balance allowing trees to follow their natural form with the need to allow for the access and safety of visitors.

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What is it? Where is it living? Learn more from experts and add your own observations!

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Dzivula Gube
Marine Conservationist & Underwater Photographer, Kenya

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iNaturalist is a social network for naturalists! Record your observations of plants and animals,
share them with friends and researchers, and learn about the natural world.

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Find out from our Southern Brown Bandicoot Outreach Officer

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What to do if you see a Southern Brown Bandicoot