Botanical conservation at the Desert Park

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Alice Springs Desert Park is one of three of the Northern Territory’s botanical gardens and part of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership and Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Botany and Herbarium staff are testing 73 species of seed to assess germination viability.

Alice Springs Desert Park is dedicated to the preservation and conservation of local endangered plant species.

As part of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership, we collaborate with 15 organisations, including 10 conservation seed banks in Australia’s top botanic gardens, state environment agencies, non-governmental organisations, and the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership at Kew Gardens in the UK.

Importantly, we also store Central Australian seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which protects seed samples from nearly every country worldwide. This initiative serves as a backup for gene bank collections, securing the foundation of our future food supply.

Our Botany staff are currently working in collaboration with the Herbarium team testing 73 species of seed, to assess germination viability after cold storage.

A large number of Central Australian plant species occur exclusively in Central Australia, without crossing over into neighbouring states. That makes much of our flora quite special and unique and the conservation of those species rests in our hands, because if we don’t do it who else is going to? The world is changing fast in many ways and the protection, gathering and sharing of knowledge around our plants and animals and how to ensure their survival into the future has never been more important.

Winged Fruit Caltrop  (Tribulus macrocarpus) is one of everyone’s least favourite with big, woody thorns (3 corner jacks) that get stuck in the soles of your shoes, they really love thongs and sandals. Also, food for the Red Tail Black Cockatoo. Generally, a poor performer in seed trials, we achieved 37% germination by breaking the ends of the fruit off like the cockatoos do.Spermacoce tectanthera – is a small annual herb that occurs north of Katherine. There are over 50 species of Spermacoce in the NT. All 3 pretreatments of 16-year-old seed germinated at 100% rate.

Seed germination for Diels' pigeon grass (Setaria dielsii) underwaySeedlings and botanist

Seed germination underwaySeed germination underway

Narrow leaved Goodenia (Goodenia armitiana) is a small wiry plant with yellow fan flowers, it is widespread throughout the NT. 16-year-old seed germinated at 100%.Desert Bloodwood (Cormybia deserticola) is a small tree or mallee to 5 m grows in red sand usually on sand dunes.

2 Corymbia species had very good results with 17-year-old seed germination rates as high as 92%.Sandhill Bloodwood (Corymbia chippendalei) is a small tree or mallee to 10 m grows in red sand usually on sand dunes.

Seedlings and botanist
Seedlings and botanist

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