An example of the Significance of PNGplants John Davidson Research E. deglupta Herbarium Specimens

Trees of Papua New Guinea Volumes 1 – 3 by Barry J Conn and Kipiro Q Damas www.pngtrees.com provides a comprehensive treatment of 668 species of trees (Volume 1: 257 species; Vol. 2: 246 species; Vol. 3: 165 species) that will assist in the identification of the trees of Papua New Guinea.

The books provide readers with descriptions of trees with images and identification tools to assist in their identification. These volumes unlock the amazing tree diversity found in majestic forests that range from the coastal and lowland plains to the highest mountains. Barry Conn was a principal research scientist at the National Herbarium of New South Wales and associate professor at the University of Sydney. He specialized in the floras of Malesia, Australasia, and Pacific Islands with special focus on the systematics of the trees of New Guinea and several other plant families. He worked as a botanist at the PNG National Herbarium in Lae and as a lecturer at the Bulolo Forestry College (1974-1979).

Damas graduated with a diploma in forestry from the PNG Forestry College in Bulolo in 1978. He was employed as an assistant botanist at the PNG National Herbarium in Lae. He holds a Bachelor of Science (forestry) from the PNG University of Technology. He is currently undertaking a Master of Science degree at the University of PNG

An example of the Significance of PNGplants --Prof J Davidson’s Research31 E. deglupta herbarium specimens.

John Davidson had need to refer to the list of E. deglupta herbarium specimens on Plant NET to check on some 2011 collections from West New Britain. He found among the collectors over the years a number of names of interest to the PNG forester project, including Lane-Poole 1924, John Womersley 1948 (Head of the Herbarium in Lae for most of his time in PNG), Heiner Streimann 1966 (he visited Brown River for a short time when John was there in early 1965), Dorothy Sayers 1964, David Frodin 1966, Bill Heather 1949, Andrea Miller 1964, Joe Havel 1963, H S McKee 1954, J Turner 1879, J Davidson 1974, R Parkinson 1903, J Cavanaugh 1950, K Mair 1945 etc. The outcome of this research was that it had not occurred to John to use this as a source of information on who might have been in PNG at various times and especially the travels of some of the expatriate botanists from the Herbarium in Lae. Note Pryor’s name and Keravat sometimes mis-spelled during transcription.

31 Personal communication Prof John Davidson 12 May 2018

JOHN WOMERSLEY (1920-1985) joined the Dept of Forests PNG in 1946 as Forest Botanist Lae. He collected throughout Lae. In 1975, John retired to Adelaide where he continued his taxonomic research on Vireya Rhododendrons, undertook consultancies for FAO in Bangladesh and Cameroon, and led tours focussed on the flora of Papua New Guinea.

Obituary: John Spencer Womersley (1920 - 1985)

Source: https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/womersley-john.html. Retrieved 27 May 2019. Extracted from: Obituary, Brian Morley, ASBS Newsletter No.45, December 1985. Used with Australian Government permission. It was with a sense of considerable loss that the botanical community in Australia learnt of the death in Sydney on 2 September, of their colleague John Womersley after a short illness. They may have known he had come to Australia from England in 1930 and, two years later as a 12-yearold, went to Adelaide High School, then the University of Adelaide and South Australian Teachers' College. His first job as a teacher lasted about 18 months; he then joined the CSIRO Division of Soils.

In June 1946 he was offered the position of Forest Botanist with the Provisional Administration of Papua and New Guinea, and in August arrived in Lae. During the next 29 years John lived in Lae, became Assistant Director, Division of Botany, of the Department of Forests, and expanded the 2000 or so botanical collections of the Australian Army Forestry Company to more than 250,000 as the National Herbarium. He developed the National Botanic Garden at Lae. With his wife Mary he raised five children.

32Portrait Photo John Womersley 1978

There are few contemporaries who travelled so widely in Papua New Guinea, much of it on foot. He also visited the Solomon Islands adjacent and Dutch New Guinea, as it was then called. Many overseas contacts, scientific and otherwise, benefited from John's intimate knowledge of the geography, natural history, and people of Papua New Guinea: close links were made with colleagues in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaya and Thailand and these countries visited frequently.

John's interest in showy species suitable for display in gardens or botanic gardens included a detailed appreciation of the genera Rhododendron, Begonia, Hoya and Tecomanthe, their cultural requirements and where they could be in the forest. Many groups of scientists enjoyed John's leadership on field excursions, and in 1971 he was a chief organiser for the

32 Portrait photo J S Womersley 1978 George Chippendale Collection ANBG

Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science Congress held in Port Moresby. He organised all conference tours.

He inaugurated the Division of Botany publication program and was the author of numerous books and papers including being a major contributor to the Encyclopaedia of Papua New Guinea. He was a Trustee and Board Member of the National Museum, was Councillor and President of the Papua New Guinea Scientific Society and, characteristically, a member of Lae Town Council! Only in his retirement in Adelaide did Brian Morley come to know John and learn to admire his unflagging enthusiasm for matters botanical. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation engaged him on consultancies in Bangladesh and Cameroon: the Singapore Government sought his advice, and Bougainville Copper asked his advice on revegetation of mine tailings. The P & 0 shipping line engaged the services of both John and Mary as experienced escorts and lecturers on their Pacific cruises.

His obvious affection for Papua New Guinea was regularly satisfied with tours he organised on behalf of the International Horticulture Congress held in Sydney in 1980, and two Australian Rhododendron Society tours to Papua New Guinea in 1981 and 1983. In 1984 he organised a tour and escorted Friends of the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide to Papua New Guinea. He was Vice-President of the Friends, President of the Royal Society of South Australia and active in the work of these and other organisations.

He was working with Dr Bob Withers on Vireya section of Rhododendron in anticipation of a book on the group. He was cooperating with Dr Nancy Bowers of the Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland on Saccharum edule. He had recently completed the work of supervision of 'Friends' volunteers in the State Herbarium of South Australia, permitting publication of the first two editions of a computerised census of the South Australian flora.

33 John Womersley’s 1975 farewell letter to all PNG Colleagues

33 Copy of correspondence provided by Professor John Davidson

KEVIN WHITE (1924-2012) joined the Dept of Forests PNG in 1957 as Assistant Botanist and Plant Ecologist Division of Botany Lae. He continued to work with the Department of Forests for 20 years in various capacities as a Silvicultural Research officer, Chief of Division Silviculture, Assistant Director (Research & Development) and, prior to his departure in 1977, as Acting Director of the Department. After PNG, Kevin undertook various consultancies including FAO Bangladesh and ADB Nepal.

Far Left Photo Kev White at Brown River teak plantation early 1970 with Evo Vai.

Far Right photos courtesy M Fagg ANBG. Dr Lindsay Smith Queensland Government Botanist honoured Kev White and Eddie Volck by naming one of the species from the Kuranda area Neorites kevediana (Fishtail silky oak).

Vale Kevin Joseph White by Bob Thistlethwaite. Source IFA publication The Forester Volume 56 No 1 March 2013

Kevin Joseph White (Kev or just K.J. to many) died on 28th of June 2012 at Pinjarra Hills, Brisbane. He was born in 15 Apr 1924 in Marrickville, Sydney. His family home was at Wyong (north of Sydney) where his father had a dairy and mixed grain farm. By 1930 the family had moved to North Queensland where his father pioneered a tobacco farm (on Tinaroo Creek, some 13 km from Mareeba) and subsequently grew sugar cane on the Upper Mulgrave Valley (about 11 km by road from Gordonvale).

He completed the first stage of secondary education in 1941 and then worked for a spell in the Queensland Public Service in Brisbane, enlisting in the AIF in 1942 (QX57633/Q144919). He shipped out to New Guinea where he was taken on by 39 Light Wireless Air Warning Section as an electrician and later returned to Australia for radio technician training. Back in New Guinea he was attached to the 2nd Australian Corps Signals at the transmitter centre on the Sattelburg trail above Finschhafen, and later at

Torokina on Bougainville. There at Torokina Kevin celebrated his 21st birthday and the end of the Pacific war.

After his discharge (26 Sep 1946), he re-joined the Queensland Public Service but opted for retraining under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. He firstly completed his secondary schooling and then became a Cadet Forest Officer of the Queensland Department of Forestry. His four-year degree entailed two years at the University of Queensland followed by two years at the Australian Forestry School in Canberra, graduating with Dip. For. in 1951 and B.Sc. (For.) in 1952.

The next five years were largely spent on rainforest management research in North Queensland, partly at the Forest Research Station at Atherton, where he became familiar with many of the species of the rainforest flora, established a large botanical collection, and discovered new species. He, along with his boss Eddie Volck, were honoured by Dr Lindsay Smith, Queensland Government Botanist, by naming one of the tree species from the vicinity of Kuranda as Neorites kevediana (Fishtail silky oak) (Proteaceae).

Kevin transferred to the Forest Department of the Territory of Papua & New Guinea in 1957 as Assistant Botanist and Plant Ecologist at the Botany Division of the Department in Lae, and in 1958 oversaw the Lae Botanic Gardens. He continued to work with the Department of Forests for 20 years in various capacities as a Silvicultural Research officer, Assistant Director (Research & Development) and, prior to his departure in 1977, as Acting Director of the Department.

Kevin was responsible for establishing the Bulolo Forestry School (now the Bulolo Campus of the University of Technology) and was actively involved in the development of the Degree course in Forestry at the University of Technology at Lae. He was awarded the Imperial Service Order on 11 June 1977 “For Faithful Service”, and in 2000 was honoured by the Governor General of Papua New Guinea “For contribution in services to the development of Papua New Guinea” commemorating 25 years of PNG Independence.

Kevin made a major contribution to forestry development in PNG, especially through the training of local forestry personnel, a process he commenced long before self-government’s drive for localisation of government administration. It was that core of professionally qualified staff who became the backbone of forestry administration post-independence and the later National Forest Service. The Managing Director of the PNG Forest Authority, Kanawi Pouru, wrote “The late Kevin White was a professional colleague who had dedicated a good part of his life in Papua New Guinea to help build and establish a strong foundation for a future National Forest Service as part of the national preparedness program leading towards Independence in the mid-seventies. He was a great forester and an administrator that made a huge contribution to shaping the future direction of PNG’s Forest Management and Development.”

In 1977 Kevin left PNG and commenced work on international projects, firstly on an FAO project in Bangladesh to rehabilitate the Forest Research Centre at Chittagong. This was followed by a six-year Asian Development Bank-funded eucalypt plantation project in Nepal at Sagarnath in the Terai where he trained 80 forestry technicians. The plantations supplied thinnings for electric light poles and for scaffolding and were also a necessary and valued firewood resource. He maintained contact over the next 20 years regularly visiting Sagarnath and other areas of Nepal, a country he had come to love. After the close of the ADB project he became an independent consultant providing services to China, Cambodia, Bhutan, Indonesia, and Brazil and maintained forest interests in many Asian countries. During the

1990-1991 period while working in Cambodia, he lectured in Forest Ecology at Champadong University in Phnom Penh.

Kevin undertook considerable research into teak silviculture in Asia and contributed widely to the development of teak plantations there and in Brazil. He maintained a keen interest in Eucalyptus silviculture and was also a staunch advocate for Dalbergia sisoo and Pterocarpus indicus which he championed as species that are readily propagated and appropriate for village production systems, and with a wide range of end uses from furniture to firewood.

Kevin was well known throughout South East Asia as a Forestry Adviser and earned a high level of respect for the work that he accomplished. He always was concerned to pass on his knowledge to local professional foresters. Many forestry students from Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Cambodia, and Laos kept in contact with Kevin and after he retired to Thailand he was forever advising and editing their assignments and theses. The letters of appreciation and plaques from various authorities testify to the work that Kevin undertook and his achievements.

He had a passion for orchids, collected extensively, and co-authored “Wild Orchids in Nepal” with Bhagirath Sharma, a close friend. This was a fine achievement considering his age and the terrain that had to be traversed to obtain the material and take quality photos.

Kevin was always ready to provide advice, guidance and instruction to those upcoming forestry professionals who sought it and is fondly regarded by many from PNG to Nepal for his generosity of time and resources in this regard. Professor Simon Saulei (University of Vudal) wrote that he was fortunate to be trained by Kevin during his Forestry Cadetship. Simon attended UPNG and when he visited Forestry HQ at Hohola, Kevin freely provided him with books, manuals, and other information. This was typical of Kevin in his drive to foster the tertiary education of local officers.

Kevin was a sociable person who made friends easily. He had a quick wit and subtle sense of humour, coupled with a certain panache. His BBQs were notable. Not for Kevin some rustic rough and ready affair, eating off a paper plate and drinking out of a plastic cup; out in the middle of the bush in an idyllic setting you were confronted with a 25 kg bag of green prawns, scallops, oysters, fish, steaks and other goodies, a table covered with crisply starched white tablecloth, crystal goblets, silver wine buckets, rafts of ice-cold refreshments and all the trimmings — and, of course, wood fired BBQs! And as for Kev’s dinners and Australia Day parties.... memorable affairs!

His life has been most interesting and varied and his travels have taken him to all corners of the globe. His forestry achievements in PNG and SE Asia are his legacy, one which will live on through the graduates he guided.

Information collated largely from an obituary by close friend Rex Wiggins delivered at K.J.’s funeral, from Kevin White’s published family history (2003) and from my own reminiscences - Bob Thistlethwaite.

Forester, vol 56, no 1, March 2013, pp 29-30

Pieter van Royen 1923-2003 joined the Lae Herbarium of the Department of Forests in 1962. He left PNG in 1965

34 David Frodin advised that Pieter van Royen (1923-2003) was educated in the Netherlands and then was a botanist at the then-Rijksherbarium (National Herbarium) of the Netherlands until c. 1962.

In 1962 he came to Lae where he was on Womersley’s staff for three years, departing in 1965 around the time the staff and collections moved into the first part of the permanent buildings (they had been in an old bungalow or pre-war or WW2 vintage: the site of the Botanic Garden had been a plantation, I believe).

During his time in Lae, he did a fair amount of field work, began his work towards what became his Alpine Flora of New Guinea (including expeditions to the Saruwaged Range and elsewhere), and began to compile the first parts of a Manual of Forest Trees. I do not know if he participated in any of the resource assessment surveys.

After Lae and a spell in Brisbane without employment, he was hired by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum as their botanist in 1966 or 1967 (David visited him there in May 1967) and stayed there until retirement in 1983. Pieter then moved to mainland USA. His major work was Alpine flora of New Guinea in 4 volumes, which was by and large a single-handed effort with also an interested specialist German publisher (Cramer) involved (who was not afraid to take on “high-risk” material like that).

Van Royen P 1963 The Vegetation of the Island of New Guinea Division of Botany Dept of Forests PNG

34 Personal communication David Frodin May 2019

Heinar Streimann35 (1938-2001) joined the Dept of Forests in 1961. He was a lecturer in botany at the BFC and then worked in the Lae Herbarium. He departed PNG in 1972 moving to the Australian National Herbarium Canberra till retirement.

Heinar was private, shy, quiet, and gentlemanly by nature. Although not at ease in large groups, in a one-to-one situation he was ever willing to share his passion for plants, particularly mosses, and to help with identifications and exchange of collections with anyone sharing his interests. He loved fieldwork and many overseas visitors to Canberra over the years were able to share days in the field with him.

His family, too, shared many working expeditions with him with many roadside stops. As a growing boy, his son Arvid saw many interesting places in Victoria and the Brindabellas on excursions or holidays spent with his father in the bush. Heinar’s two daughters, Arlene and Mirja, and his wife Lina joined in with the activities. Mirja used her skills as an artist to illustrate the covers of some of his Exiccatae and help with other illustrations for his publications. His wife Lina gave him considerable support and encouragement in all his endeavours and shared his love of travel. Hence, they travelled widely in North America, Japan, the Philippines, and Europe. It was on those expeditions, meeting many overseas bryologists that Heinar realised the recognition they gave for his knowledge and the value of his collections.

Although he lived most of his life in Australia, Heinar felt particularly at home in Europe in his latter days after re-establishing his connections with relatives in Estonia where he was born in Turtu in 1938. The war years took their toll when as a young boy he lost his father in the Estonian Air Force. His early years were spent with his mother, grandmother, and brother under war conditions and the post-war period under the Russians. Finally, in 1950 the family fled to Germany where Heinar began his education. Later in 1950 the family migrated to Australia, to Seymour in Victoria where he remained until he completed his schooling and moved to work in Melbourne.

His working career was quite varied. He began at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne (1959-1961). In 1961 he moved to Papua New Guinea where he worked (1961-1963) in the Department of Forests at Bulolo. In 1964 he moved to the Bulolo Forestry College where he was employed in surveying and planning roads for the growing forestry industry. His travels in the forest and being surrounded daily by rich tropical vegetation, as well his keen observation and curiosity, soon gave him a love of botany, particularly tropical plants and later the cryptogams. He began teaching botany at the Forestry College and in 1971-1972

35 Source: https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/streimann-heinar.html. Retrieved 8 May 2019. Written by Helen Ramsay, published in the Australian Bryological Newsletter Number 45, May 2002. Used with Australian Government permission.

worked in the Division of Botany at Lae. In 1972 he moved to Canberra to work in the Herbarium, National Botanic Gardens (CBG). In 1993 this became part of the Australian National Herbarium, Centre of Plant Diversity Research. (CANB) where Heinar remained, except for a short return to the Forestry College in Bulolo as a visiting lecturer in 1981-83, until his retirement in 2000.

Whilst in New Guinea he corresponded with a pen pal Angelina (Lina) in the Philippines. Finally, in 1965 he met her in Manila where their relationship blossomed and, after a whirlwind courtship, they were married there. His years in Papua New Guinea gave him an understanding and rapport with the indigenous people there. Thus, when he returned in 1981 –1982 as a lecturer, he was able to make significant collections with the help of the local population. Some of these collections were sent to Helen Ramsay for cytological studies.

During his years in Canberra, he studied part-time for a degree in Applied Science (University of Canberra) and later, with Helen Ramsay as supervisor, he completed a master’s degree at the University of New South Wales working on a revision of the Meteoriaceae in Australia. In his early years in Canberra, Heinar began amassing herbarium collections of cryptogams. Initially duplicates were sent overseas to e.g., Helsinki, New York, or Leiden for identification by experts. Gradually Heinar became more expert in identification himself and was able to place names on most of his collections. Apart from those from Papua New Guinea, Heinar’s collections were made when he travelled widely in Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania and recently in Vanuatu. As well as sending duplicates to many herbaria, including H, L, NY, and MO, he made a series of Exiccatae for distribution consisting of 17 fascicles representing 500 numbers. During his time at Canberra, he built up the cryptogamic collections at CBG (now in CANB) from 14 packets to what finally, at his retirement, is the largest collection of cryptogams in the Southern Hemisphere. The collection now stands at ca 65,000 with approximately equal numbers of mosses and lichens, the rest being liverworts and fungi.

A close friendship and many field excursions with his colleague Jack Elix were the basis for many of the lichen collections and several publications. When close to death Heinar was relieved when Jack agreed to help complete his unfinished publications, particularly the revised catalogue. Other colleagues will also help.

Apart from his connections with Papua New Guinea, Heinar had a real interest in the offshore islands close to Australia e.g., Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Lord Howe Island. His book on the Mosses of Norfolk Island is the result of his work there. Unfortunately, others which were anticipated were not completed. In recent years he also became interested in Vanuatu where he worked with the indigenous botanists and tried to establish an interest in and appreciation of the bryophytes and lichens of these Islands. A catalogue of these is in preparation and will be published.

Heinar had a remarkable ability for cataloguing information and references. He was very patient working away at this in his own time. Once these data were accumulated with help from Judith Curnow, they were entered into the computer and ABRS was persuaded to publish it. This catalogue (Streimann & Curnow 1989) was a milestone in our knowledge of Australian mosses, bringing together in a compact volume, the names, publication data and distribution by state for all the known Australian species. It included a vast number of early publications and has provided so much useful information and saved many hours of library research for those involved in Flora writing. The increased activity in moss research both in

Australia and worldwide since then has necessitated the production of an updated version. Heinar had prepared a draft manuscript, which was almost complete at the time of his death. It will be published soon. In addition, he has an extensive publication list including over 50 papers and 17 Exiccatae and 2-3 books. The revision of the families Meteoriaceae and Hookeriaceae are a taxonomic contribution to the Flora of Australia.

The death of Heinar Streimann on 29th August 2001 has left a gap in the bryological community. His contributions to Australian bryology have been outstanding. He will be sorely missed by many of his colleagues scattered worldwide. Heinar will long be remembered for his passionate love of the cryptogams and his ability to impart that knowledge to those interested enough to listen.

Map of Heinar Streimann collection locations, from AVH 2013

Publications

74 publications and 1 poster - see https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/streimann-heinar.html.

36Colin Ernest Ridsdale (1944-2017) joined the Lae Herbarium of the Dept of Forests in 1966. He departed PNG in 1968

Following a short illness Colin Ridsdale died on 5 January 2017, just two weeks short of his 73rd birthday. Colin was a consummate botanist, who throughout his checkered career was fascinated by plants, their taxonomy, ecology, uses, and horticultural potential.

Born in Bristol, he attended Weston-Super-Mare Grammar School where he oversaw the school gardens and served on the local horticultural society. His academic training in botany was at the University of Bristol, where he ultimately defended his PhD thesis on a revision of the genus Uncaria of the Rubiaceae. That species-rich family would hold his active interest throughout his life. Prior to his PhD he had served from 1966 to 1968 on the staff of the Department of Botany, Lae, Papua New Guinea, laying the foundation for his later expertise and experience as a tropical field botanist. From PNG there were excursions to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore.

In 1971 he was selected in Leiden for one of the two first grants from the Foundation for the Advancement of Malesian Botany, funded by B.A. Krukoff, initially to revise Leeaceae for Flora Malesiana, later to monograph the far more speciose Naucleeae (Rubiaceae). Leiden would become his home base for later botanical pursuits. In Holland he met his wife Marjolein Hiltermann and here he raised their two sons Robin and Lennard. Since no vacancy was available at the then Rijksherbarium, Colin remained a Krukoff Botanist until the modest funds had completely dried up. However, as an Honorary Staff member in Leiden he was successful in continuing his work on a great number of projects and contracts that demanded his unique expertise.

In 1984, he joined the Palawan Botanical Expedition of the Swedish Hilleshög Forestry Company and the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Philippines.This resulted in invaluable new information on rare plants and endemics of the varied but botanically littleexplored landscapes of Palawan. In 1989 Colin joined the Danum Valley project, four years

36 Source https://repository.naturalis.nl/document/645698 Retrieved 7 June 2019

Extracted from Blumea 62, 2017: i–iv ISSN (Online) 2212-1676. Article by PBaas1, *, J.T. Pereira2, K.M. Wong3, P.H. Hovenkamp1, P.J. AKeßler4, D.M. Newbery5 Published on 8 March 2017. Used with Blumea Approval

1 Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, section Botany, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden the Netherlands; corresponding author e-mail: pieter.baas@naturalis.nl 2 Forest Research Centre, Peti Surat 1407, 90715 Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia.3 Singapore Botanic Gardens,1 Cluny Road, Singapore 259569. Leiden University, Hortus botanicus, 5e Binnenvestgracht 8, 2311 VH Leiden, The Netherlands. 5 University of Bern, Institute of Plant Sciences, Tropical Forest Ecology, Altenbergrain 21, 3013 Bern, Switzerland.

after the Stirling-Bern main dynamics plots had been set up and continued his input right up until 2016. He took on the considerable task of confirming or revising the identifications of the c. 18 thousand trees of the first census, and then identifying recruits (into the 10-cm dbh class) enumerated in the following ones of 1996, 2001, 2007 and 2015 (on average c. 1.5 thousand trees each). A large majority of the trees, especially those of the understorey, were infertile. This required extensive collection, storage, cross-checking, revising, and sometimes renaming, thousands of vegetative specimens. The updating of list after list was a formidable task. Over the years, whenever fertile material became available, many taxa could be more confidently named. Gradually, the taxonomic status of the plots rose to over 98.5 % trees named to species level. From 1995, the set of smaller satellite plotsat Danum needed similar attention. Without this high-level and consistent contribution, supported by the Leiden and Sandakan Herbaria and colleagues at both institutions, the ecological results and subsequently published findings would not have been possible. Combining the skills of a good generalist tropical botanist with a specialist interest in a species-rich family (Rubiaceae) is very unusual, and in this Colin excelled. It was greatly to the benefit of the Danum Programme to have had him associated with it for so many years. The important long-term (30-yr) forest dynamics research achieved at Danum has, without doubt, depended on it being studied in one the world’s best-identified set of plots. The Sandakan Herbarium also benefited tremendously from Colin’s visits where he not onlyidentified Danum Valley plants but also materials of Rubiaceae and other families collected elsewhere. During his last visit, he was especially concerned about the well-being of the Herbarium and provided valuable inputs on ways to solve problems in managing the Herbarium and its specimens. He also shared his views on the future of the Herbarium and provided ideas on how to move forward in botanical research. Colin enjoyed the company of like-minded field staff and appreciated the broad knowledge of forestry staff, particularly the late Leopold Madani and Postar Miun, who had accompanied him on his trips to Danum Valley.

In 1990 Colin served as a consultant in the Barito Ulu Project, Indonesia; in 1991 as expert botanist in the field training programme at Isabela State University, Luzon, the Philippines; from 1991–1995 as consultant/collaborator in the Flora of Ceylon project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; in 1993–1994 as Mercer Scholar at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University for the study of Rubiaceae; in 1995 as advisor for the Manila Zoo and Botanical Garden; in 1995–1996 as senior researcher to coordinate ecological and ethnobotanical research in the Vogelkop in the multidisciplinary ISIR programme (Irian Jaya Studies); in 1996 as consultant for the Cat Ba National Park in Vietnam. From 2005–2006 he was a senior researcher for the EU project Open Source for Weed Assessment in lowland paddy fields in Laos and Cambodia where the collection, identification, and description of these taxa were used to create interactive keys. From 2006–2008 he was involved in the EU Project BIOTIK, creating a first network of South Asian and European partners interested in applied computer science for taxonomy and the construction of interactive keys to the trees of two hotspots of biodiversity, the Western Ghats, and the Annamite Mountain range of Laos PDR. Most recently in 2016, Colin looked forward to work on a treatment of the Rubiaceae for the Flora of Singapore. It was during his visit to the Singapore Herbarium last November that the symptoms of the cancer, which turned out to be fatal, became apparent. The above review of substantial projects and contracts is incomplete, but it is important to emphasize that most of them alsoinvolved extensive fieldwork and plant collecting. Colin’s herbarium collections in Lae, from the tropical rain forests of New Guinea, India (Kerala), the Philippines, Borneo, Laos, and Sri Lanka number close to seven thousand and include numerous new species and records. He had a very keen eye for rare and interesting plants,not only in the taxa of his own specialization but as a true floristic generalist.

Colin was particularly generous to younger botanists and gave much effort in pre-sorting and recommending herbarium specimen loans for various studies, and where pertinent also contributed his own insights that were often instructive. He also provided them with valuable literature, that was not available to them. As a keen gardener he often volunteered to work in the gardens of relatives and friends and to enrich their assortment of plants with cuttings and seeds from his own gardens or other sources. In later years, he spent much of his spare time in assembling information and illustrations on useful plants and fruits and ethno - botany. The resulting database was still a work in progress at the time of his untimely death. In 2005 he wrote a nice popular book called Trees (together with John White and Carol Usher) in the Eyewitness Companions series. Colin had a great sense of humour. When informed that the Sandakan Herbarium, to which he was a very welcome visitor, had framed a portrait of him and added it to their portrait gallery of Bornean botanists placed along the upper corridor, he wrote that he felt honoured he had been “framed and hung”. On another occasion, when Colin was informed that a new genus, Ridsdalea, was going to be named after him, he wrote “I was speechless, sat down in amazement and had a glass of wine to ward off any possible heart attack!” Throughout his career Colin held strong views on where tropical botany, flora projects, and conservation research should go, and he was not afraid to confront policy makers who did not agree. At the same time, he was a truly kind and helpful colleague and friend.

37Andrée Norma Millar OBE (1917-1995) joined the Dept of Forests in 1954 at the Lae Herbarium. In 1971 she moved to Port Moresby to establish the Botanical Gardens at the University of PNG.

Andrée Norma Miller was born in France in 1917 and died in PNG in 1995. She arrived in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 1947 with her husband, (a mining engineer), where they stayed until ca. 1992 and became part of the country as an explorer, patriot, a person in love with its people, gadfly, disciplinarian, and a botanist synonymous with its orchids.

Photo source: http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/ Life in PNG started in a “place of eternal spring, FMCollectors/images/PhotoM/MillarAN-photo.gif the gold mining camp of Bulolo" where she discovered the land and its people and a country she grew to love, and where she started her orchid collection. It did not take long for her to become known as “long-long Misis bilong plaua” PNG pidgin English for “slightly mad white women who collected flowers, useless flowers which were fit for nothing.”

For years Andrée moved all over PNG in whatever conveyances were available, boats, small planes, helicopters, motor vehicles and on foot. The country was wild, dangerous and unexplored, but she felt endangered only once she said: “a spear suddenly landed in front of us, just a few feet from me … I was frankly terrified, and we all stood like statues, watching it quiver in front of us … the spear thrower was the first of a welcome party, demonstrating that we were ... welcome. If we had not been, the spear would not have fallen short…” She later stated that it would have been nice to know this in advance.

This was not to be the only time she was brave. On one such occasion there was a riot in PNG. Most expatriates hid in their houses, but she faced the rioters. Not her, she would yell at the “bloody bastards” in her pseudo gruff voice (she liked to use some rough but not terribly crude language (as many could tell you)) "and didn’t they run." Workers and rioters were not the only people Andree would yell at. Ministers, including the Minister of Health soon to become Prime Minister (Michael Somare) were not spared either. And they took it.

Andrée started to send plants to the Lae Herbarium and Botanical Garden. In 1955 Andrée joined the staff of the botanical gardens in Lae and by late 1960 she had moved to Port Moresby to work at the National Botanical Gardens at the University of PNG in Port Moresby. In 1971 Andrée became Director of the garden and remained there until ill health forced her to leave.

Her encyclopaedic knowledge of orchids soon gathered her many awards and honours colleting along the way: the Papua New Guinea 10 Year Independence Medal, the Gold Medal of the Orchid Society of South East Asia, an Award of Honour from the Australian Orchid Council, in 1975 an OBE from Britain, an honorary doctorate and even a chance to be

37 Source: https://www.australianorchidfoundation.org.au/andree-norma-millar/ Retrieved 29 May 2019. Used by permission.

presented to the Queen of England. She did not refuse the latter but sent her assistants instead to honour them and because “I am an old lady now and it will mean more to them.”

Andrée worked on her last book on and off for many years. It was not complete at the time of her death but was completed by her photographers and long-time friends Roy and Margaret Mackay. Andrée Norma Miller, OBE, died on December 5th, 1995 (aged 82).

Sir Michael Somare, MP, on Andrée’s passing wrote to her family: “On behalf of the people of the East Sepik Province, I would like to offer our sincere condolences in your loss. She was the one who started the National Capital District Botanical Gardens. Papua New Guinea was her second home. Her heart and love will remain in Papua New Guinea forever.”

Osia, Keith Woolliams, Robin Isgar(beard), Wakaru, Andree Millar Lae Botanical Gardens 1968 Photo credit Mark Coode

Millar Andree 1971 Gardening with Andree Millar South Pacific PostProduction

Herbert Knowles Charles Mair38 (1909-1999) was the ANGAU Botanist in PNG during World War 2.

Herbert Knowles Charles Mair was born in Toongabbie, NSW on 8 April 1909. He died in Sydney in September 1999.

He was educated at Narrabeen Public School and Sydney Grammar School, he graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in botany. For the rest of his life, Mair was a botanist who loved the knowledge of plants.

His first appointment was to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as assistant agronomist in pasture research in 1931. In 1936, at a time when the Northern Territory was only vaguely known to most people, Mair became the first resident botanist in Darwin. He established an herbarium there, and acted in many positions, his formal title being Superintendent of Agriculture and Curator of Botanic Gardens. This position gave Mair a general knowledge of plants including tropical planting and developed his independence. On a recent return visit to Darwin, he contacted the current director, who was appreciative of his keen memory for detail. Much of the history of the Darwin Gardens had been lost with World War II and in Cyclone Tracy. Mair was able to identify photographs, sketch the layout of the Gardens, and contribute information for a display of typical Darwin suburban plantings of the 1930s.

World War II changed Mair's priorities and he enlisted in the AMF in 1941, transferring to the AIF in 1942, where he had the rank of captain. He served in farm units in the Northern Territory and New Guinea as forest botanist in New Guinea, Labuan, and Sabah. On his discharge in early 1946, Mair started his 24 years with Sydney's Botanic Gardens as a botanist; he became senior botanist in 1948, and director and chief botanist in 1964 (reorganised as divisional chief, Royal Botanic Gardens and National Herbarium, in 1968). He retired in 1970.

While in the chair, Mair always insisted he was first a botanist; he was proud of that. He administered with precision and professionalism but was plagued by a shortage of resources and disappointed at not getting funds for a much-needed new herbarium building.

His efforts were maintained by his successors and were eventually successful. Mair was delighted at the acquisition of land for the Mt Tomah Botanic Garden, and his continuing interest even after retirement caused a later director, Carrick Chambers, to dub him the Godfather of Mt Tomah. The garden opened in 1987, proof that there can be results even after retirement. He was highly delighted to have been invited to the opening of the garden, and little wonder: he had had the foresight to establish ecological work from the Sydney gardens. Additionally, he had overseen the revitalisation of Centennial Park and had initiated

38 Source: http://www.cpbr.gov.au/biography/mair-knowles.html. Retrieved 28 May 2019. Extracted from: The Sydney Morning Herald OBITUARIES, George Chippendale (1999). Used with Australian Government permission

new, major tree plantings, the first since the 1930s. Mair was greatly concerned about the condition of some of the glasshouses and had planned and built the first big new pyramidal environment-controlled glasshouse in the Gardens in 1970-71.

Not everybody knew of his love of native orchids. A colleague once told him that a horse named Cymbidium (an orchid found widely in Asia, Africa, and Australia) was racing; he wagered on it and won at 8/1. Mair also wrote a foreword to Lionel Gilbert's biography of the Rev H. M. R. Rupp (The Orchid Man, 1992).

Not surprisingly, most people who work at the Sydney gardens grow to love them. Mair once wrote a bulletin - The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney (1970) - stressing particularly that "In these gardens began the agriculture and horticulture of a continent. The first farm in Australia was established on this site with seeds and plants brought from the First Fleet in 1788."

While his precision and punctuality may have been unwelcomed at times within his family, his staff appreciated it. He was reliable in all that he did; he was a scientist, a thinker, perhaps a rather private man, but withal, a botanist.

He imbued his family and friends with a knowledge of plants and their botanical names and a great love of the Australian bush. Bushwalking with Mair led to the discovery of delicate flowers and plants and he would demonstrate their beauty in detail through his lens, which was his constant companion.

His own gardens reflected some of his thoughts. They were never neat, landscaped affairs; rather, they were crammed with a wide variety of plants, exotic and native, and incorporated individual pools carved in sandstone especially for his granddaughters. When he was living at South Coogee, he referred to his seaside garden as the South Coogee Research Station, where he had great interest in seeing which species could withstand the sea spray.

I will always remember sharing a room with him before he became director; we talked of many things, and yet at that time he was Mr Mair to me, as was the custom in those days for a younger and junior person. But he confirmed our friendship by giving me the right to call him Knowles. He was like that; I knew this was not just an idle thought. I have valued his friendship of some 53 years.

A man of great complexity, yet simple needs, he was a romantic who loved and shared his enthusiasm for poetry, play-reading, theatre, music, and the moderate imbibing of Guinness, to which he attributed his longevity.

He is survived by his wife, Joan, her two boys, David, and Ian MacDonald, to whom he was father, six granddaughters and four great-grandchildren.

Alick Dockrill39 (1915-2011) joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1966. He was the Keeper of the Lae Herbarium. He left PNG in 1972 moving to CSIRO Atherton.

Alick Dockrill had made a name for himself as an amateur orchid expert before he moved to Cairns in 1957. He quickly established contact with local orchid experts as Jack Wilke and started publishing new species from the local area.

In the next ten years descriptions of 15 new species or varieties including Bubophyllum wadsworthii, Corybas abelliams, Eria intermedia, Taeniophylum flavum, Habenaria anomala and Oberonia attenuata appeared in The North Queensland Naturalist, The Orchadian, The Australian Orchid Review and Australian Plants. In addition, he published some 50 papers illustrating and providing notes for many already known species from Tropical Australia. These articles were the forerunner of his major work.

He set himself the task of illustrating and describing all the orchids of the north. The first stage was the publication in 1967 of a book, titled Australian Sarcanthinae which included four new genera and many name changes in this most difficult group. In 1969 Australian Indigenous orchids was published. This book was a true epic in orchidology in Australia. It included each of the 200 odd species and varieties and 72 genera of orchids in Tropical Australia and included all the epiphytic species in Australia as a whole. Each species and variety were covered by a full-page illustration along with a full description including habitat notes synonymy and distribution. The line drawings are botanically remarkably accurate considering that most were done with the aid of nothing more than a hand lens. This book was instrumental in encouraging local naturalists such as Bruce Gray, Rev. Ron Collins and Lewis Roberts to look for new species.

As well as formally describing new species, Dockrill was active in collecting new records in the field. Over the years he was the first Australian collector of Aphyllorchis anomala, Eria intermedia, Corybas aconitiforus, Malaxis fimbriata, Flickingeria convexa, Gastrodia queenslandica, Liparis condylobulbon. Oberonia attenuata and Saccolabiopsis rectiolia. intermedia, Taeniophylum flavum, Habenaria anomala and Oberonia attenuata appeared in The North Queensland Naturalist, The Orchadian, The Australian Orchid Review and Australian Plants.

39 Source: https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/dockrill-alick.html Retrieved 6 June 2019.

Extracted from: Laverack, Bill (2013) 'With Strange Device: A history of the discovery of Tropical Australia's Orchids', (Australian Orchid Foundation), Peter S. Laverack, Buderim, Qld Portrait Photo: from: above publication Used with Australian Government permission

In addition, he published some 50 papers illustrating and providing notes for many already known species from Tropical Australia. These articles were the forerunner of his major work. He set himself the task of illustrating and describing all the orchids of the north. The first stage was the publication in 1967 of a book titled Australian Sarcanthinae which included four new genera and many name changes in this most difficult group. In 1969 Australian Indigenous orchids was published. This book was a true epic in orchidology in Australia. It included each of the 200 odd species and varieties and 72 genera of orchids in Tropical Australia and included all the epiphytic species in Australia as a whole. Each species and variety were covered by a full-page illustration along with a full description including habitat notes synonymy and distribution. The line drawings are botanically remarkably accurate considering that most were done with the aid of nothing more than a hand lens. This book was instrumental in encouraging local naturalists such as Bruce Gray, Rev. Ron Collins and Lewis Roberts to look for new species.

As well as formally describing new species, Dockrill was active in collecting new records in the field. Over the years he was the first Australian collector of Aphyllorchis anomala, Eria intermedia, Corybas aconitiforus, Malaxis fimbriata, Flickingeria convexa, Gastrodia queenslandica, Liparis condylobulbon. Oberonia attenuata and Saccolabiopsis rectiolia.

In 1966 such was Dockrill's reputation as a botanist that, despite having no formal qualifications, he was appointed Keeper of the Herbarium at Lae in Papua New Guinea. In 1970 he was employed in the herbarium of the Forest Research Branch of CSIRO at Atherton where he worked until his retirement in 1980. During his retirement at Atherton, he worked on a complete revision of Australian Indigenous Orchids which was published in 1992.

Alick and Molly Dockrill in the Kassam Pass area, Jan 1968. Photo Credit Mark Coode.

Mark Coode joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in October 1966 as forest botanist. He worked across PNG including New Ireland, New Britain, Bougainville, Southern Highlands, Northern & Central Morobe, and the Eastern Highlands. He departed PNG in September 1972 returning to the UK to work at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew until retiring in 1997.

Mark Coode’s work as a botanist is recognised by having at least nine species named after him.

From 1961 to 1966, Mark was employed at the Edinburgh Herbarium on the Flora of Turkey.

In 1966, he was appointed Senior Botanist in the Botany Division Lae. He went to New Guinea at the suggestion of Tim Whitmore (Tim oversaw the Solomon Islands Herbarium in Honiara for many years.)

Mark contributed Combretaceae (including Terminalia) and Elaeocarpaceae in Vols 1 (1978) and 2 (1981) respectively of the Handbook Flora of Papua New Guinea. He is the author of a Foresters’ Manual of Combretaceae (1969). His collecting activities in PNG in detail are well documented. There are several hundred specimens in the Lae Herbarium with his name on them as collector or co-collector.

At Kew gardens he was employed on (and collected in) Mauritius and Reunion Islands, and later went on collecting trips to the Philippines (1986), Sulawesi (1989); Brunei (several between 1990 and 1994) and Indonesia New Guinea (1989 and 2000)

“Gang of Four” Bob Johns; George Argent (Banana Project New Guinea Biological Foundation Lae); Peter Stevens and Mark Coode 1980’s conference somewhere. Photo Credit Mark Coode

Dr Barry Conn joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1974 to 1976. From 1976 to 1979 he was Botany lecturer at the Bulolo Forestry College Bulolo. In 1979 he departed PNG for the University of Adelaide. In 1982 he joined the National Herbarium Victoria until 1987 when he joined the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney.

Dr Barry Conn was a principal research scientist at the National Herbarium of New South Wales and associate professor at the University of Sydney. He specialized in the floras of Malesia, Australasia, and Pacific Islands with special focus on the systematics of the trees of New Guinea and several other plant families. He worked as a botanist at the PNG National Herbarium in Lae and as a lecturer at the Bulolo Forestry College (1974-1979). Since 1982 he has regularly visited PNG to continue his botanical research and to document and describe trees for the PNG trees project.

Dr Barry Coon in his detailed report titled Projects of the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium (LAE) Barry J. Conn National Herbarium of NSW, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney NSW 2000 reported on the status of the National Herbarium in Lae.

Dr Barry Conn described the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium (LAE) as part of the Papua New Guinea Forestry Research Institute (FRI), PNG Forest Authority. The old herbarium has been extended and now forms a wing of the large Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-funded FRI complex. LAE is a major botanical institution within the region. It has the best collection of plants from Papua New Guinea, with extensive collections from Irian Jaya (Papua, Indonesia) and the Solomon Islands. The primary role of the herbarium is to improve and maintain its botanical reference collection for the management and documentation of Papua New Guinean forest resources. It also aims to undertake further plant inventories and exploration of priority areas in the country. Finally, it aims to carry out taxonomic research on the local flora, particularly the timber tree species and threatened groups. The herbarium maintains an extensive plant exchange program with other international herbaria and institutions. Botanical collections are available for loan to bona fide.

Dr Barry Conn described the botanical exploration program as frequently based on unplanned opportunities that arise from time to time because of the lack of consistent and adequate internal funding. This is part of the larger National financial crisis. The most dramatic decline in PNG has been in the quality of governance. The Government currently supports a wide range of programs that are not affordable within their current budget parameters. Budget appropriations are often inadequate, and agencies rarely receive their allocated funds. The result is that service delivery is limited and biased toward urban areas. The fundamental weakness of governance undermines investment by government, the private sector and development agencies, threatening both prosperity and stability. For most of the 1990s, growth was based on the booming minerals sector. These industries are now ending and there has been little replacement investment. The Government has allowed its non-minerals sector to wither, particularly its agricultural services and transport infrastructure. The breakdown in transportation infrastructure, including a much-reduced aerial capability, directly impacts on

the botanical exploration capabilities of the Herbarium in this geographically demanding country.

Trees of Papua New Guinea Volumes 1 –3 by Barry J Conn and Kipiro Q Damas www.pngtrees.com

A NEW three-volume series of books called the Trees of Papua New Guinea have been published by Xlibris Australia in April 2019. The book is written by two scientists based on 16 years of research. The books provide readers with descriptions of trees with images and identification tools to assist in their identification. These volumes unlock the amazing tree diversity found in majestic forests that range from the coastal and lowland plains to the highest mountains. The three volumes will enable those who are responsible for natural resource management to improve their skills on trees in these forests so that they can fully appreciate the richness of the biologically diverse forests.

The two authors Barry J Conn and Kipiro Q Damas are scientists who specialized in floral and forestry science.

Damas graduated with a diploma in forestry from the PNG Forestry College in Bulolo in 1978. He was employed as an assistant botanist at the PNG National Herbarium in Lae. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) from the PNG University of Technology. He is currently undertaking a Master of Science degree at the University of PNG.

The island of New Guinea has a high diversity of species and a high level of endemism, containing more than 5 percent of earth’s biodiversity in just over one half of a percent of the land on the earth. New Guinea supports the largest area of mature tropical moist forest in the Asia/Pacific region. Papua New Guinea consists of the eastern part of the island of New Guinea, plus the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, Buka, and Bougainville. There are between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand species of vascular plants in Papua New Guinea, with at least two thousand species of trees. The most important challenge for Papua New Guinea is the protection of biological diversity against the pressures resulting from global climate change, inappropriate destructive conversion of natural communities, unsustainable exploitation of forests, national economic development, and societal demands, including a fair sharing of the nation’s wealth, and law and order issues.

John Davidson Biography

John’s career in forestry spans more than 50 years. He joined the Dept of Forests as a forestry cadet in 1962. He gained his education around the time of the transition of forestry studies from the former Australian Forestry School at Yarralumla to the Australian National University in the mid-1960’s. He has BSc and BSc (Forestry) (Honours) degrees, Schlich Medal and PhD in forestry. His early career was in forest research at Keravat in Papua New Guinea (PNG) where he became interested in, and a specialist on, Eucalyptus deglupta. In the late 1960’s John took Lindsay Pryor on a tour of E. deglupta localities in PNG before the latter and Lawrie Johnson published their classification of the eucalypts in 1971, placing the species in its own series Degluptae.

His later career has included: Officer-in Charge Forest Research Station, Bulolo, PNG; Foundation Chairman, Professor and Head of Department of Forestry, elected Dean Faculty of Natural Resources, Papua New Guinea University of Technology (PNGUT), Lae, PNG; Pro Vice Chancellor, PNGUT; Senior Forestry Officer, FAO; Partner, Principal and Managing Director in two forestry and natural resource management and planning consultancy businesses based in Armidale NSW Australia (Eucalyptus and Forestry Services (EFS), Resource and Environmental Services (RES)); Foundation Chairman International Union of Forest Research Organizations’ (IUFRO) Working Parties on eucalypts and member of several other IUFRO Working Parties; Member, Commission on Ecology (COE) of the (then) World Conservation Union (earlier and again now International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)) and Chairman and Co-chairman of its Working Group on Tropical Moist Forests; Research Scientist, Land and Forest Sciences Programme, Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS), Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), Canberra (now Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARES); Member of the Australian Life Cycle Assessment Interim Steering Committee for the Australian Life Cycle Inventory (AusLCI) Database Initiative and two of its Sub-committees, AusLCI Data Collection Guidelines, and industry sector Working Group on Wood Products.

John is probably best known for his co-authorship, with Ken Eldridge, Chris Harwood, and Gerrit van Wyk, of the book Eucalyptus Domestication and Breeding published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK. His other substantial writing and editing work has included: The State of Australia’s Forest Genetic Resources (with co-authors from CSIRO and ABARES), a report by the Australian Government to the FAO 2012; Criterion summaries and case studies, and science editing of Australia’s State of the Forests Report 2013; writing Criterion and Thematic summaries for Victoria’s State of the Forests Report 2013, an article on E. deglupta in The Forester August 2015 and a chapter on E. deglupta in the ACIAR publication Trees for Life in Oceania 2018.

Alex Floyd MSc. For Dip For Canb. (Dist.); OAM, joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1953 as Forest Ecologist and Assistant Forest Botanist in PNG. He worked throughout PNG, departing in 1955/56, to join the NSW Forest Commission North Coast Division.

Alex received the project letter of the 17th April 2019 requesting information of his time in PNG with the Department of Forests.40

Upon graduating from the AFS, Canberra in 1951, Alex applied for the advertised position of Forest Ecologist and Assistant Forest Botanist in PNG. When he did not get a reply, he applied and was accepted for a Forester position with Forestry Commission of NSW. However, he did warn the interviewing officer of my previous application for PNG which was my first choice.

(Credit CHAH Biographical Notes 2015)

Alex spent 3 years based at Bermagui on the South Coast initially understudying subdistrict foresters in routine management and later the surveying and preparation of Management Plans for various local State Forests.

Then one day he was surprised and delighted to receive a letter from Jim McAdam, Director of Forests PNG, asking if he was still interested in the position as funds were now available. He accepted.

He was based at the Botanic Garden Office in Lae which was run by the forest Botanist John Womersley. He oversaw the Botanic Gardens when John was away on 6 months leave.

Otherwise, he was away in the field on a fascinating range of projects such as:

The first CSIRO Land Resources multidisciplinary team in the Popondetta region assisting botanist Dr. Roos Hoogland. A launch trip up the Sepik River with Scottish paper manufacturers to assess the potential of pit pit (wild sugar cane) on the vast Sepik River floodplains. Numerous collecting trips to coastal and highland areas (as far as Baiyer River) to advise mission sawmills on the use of native timbers. A week spent with Ted Gray on Aramu Island in the extensive Kikori River mangrove swamps studying the successions of the mangroves. Collecting trips by road to the Klinkii Pine logging areas at Bulolo and with Andre Millar purchasing orchids for the Botanic Gardens from mountain village people He was attached to an anthropological team from Little Rock Arkansas as the ethnobotanist whilst working near Cape Hoskins in Nakanai New Britain Stayed with missionary Jack Flentje (a forestry graduate from Creswick Victoria) to check on a report of a stand of Kauri Pines in the Central Highlands of New Britain. After two years in PNG, he returned to Melbourne in 1955 for an operation to remove an aggressive cancer. The specialist surgeon advised me not to return to the tropics. Alex was

40 Letter received from Alec Floyd 13th May 2019

appointed as a Research Forester at Coffs Harbour North Coast Silvicultural Research Centre of the NSW Forestry Commission.

David Frodin advised that Alec Floyd41 worked at the Division of Botany in the 1950’s and he was assistant botanist to Womersley. (Until the early 1960’s it was quite a small operation although maybe around 1969 was when Ted Henty joined the staff.)

There are two collections by Alec Floyd in the herbarium, both from the Bulolo plantation area and representing the same species of Araliaceae. The first in 1954 and the second in 1955. Alec was not in Lae that long a time (around two years 1953-56). He “fell out” with Womersley.

Later Alec was with the NSW Forestry Service and worked as a forest botanist at Coffs Harbour. He is author, first of several pamphlets on NSW rainforest trees and then a definitive book which appeared in the 1990’s. (Flyer attached) He was awarded an Order of Australia for his achievements.

He was active in starting the North Coast Regional Botanic Gardens at Coffs Harbour. The herbarium he built up during his time at Forestry was transferred to this Botanic Gardens.

Author - Alec Geoffrey Floyd was born in Victoria in 1926 and brought up in a home where he was given every encouragement to develop his interest in and knowledge of plant life. After leaving school he worked initially in banking before joining the Royal Australian Navy. In 1947 he entered the University of Melbourne. At the University he excelled in Botany, and his aptitude in this field continued to be shown when he moved to the Australian Forestry School in 1949. He received the Diploma in Forestry with Distinction from the Australian Forestry School at the completion of his studies in 1951, and later graduated as B.Sc., (For) from Melbourne. Joining the Forestry Commission of NSW as a forester, he spent the next two and a half years on the South Coast of NSW. He was largely engaged in forest inventory and was able, both professionally and as a hobby, to advance his interest in the local flora.

On leaving this area in 1953, he joined the Botany division of the Department of Forestry in the Territory of Papua New Guinea as forest ecologist and assistant botanist. His work was concerned with the identification and appreciation of the Territory’s rich and varied flora.

41 Personal communication David Frodin Botanist Kew Gardens UK May 2019

Sickness forced him to leave the tropics in 1956 and he re-joined the Forestry Commission of NSW as a silvicultural research officer, where he continues to live. His early years at Coffs Harbour were concerned particularly with studies into the silviculture and management of important North Coast forest communities, including the Blackbutt and Flooded Gum types. He made major contributions to forestry knowledge and practice in this work, and was awarded the Degree of M.Sc. (For) from the University of Melbourne in 1961 for a thesis on the regeneration of Flooded Gum. In that same year he became officer-in-charge of the forestry research centre at Coffs Harbour, and continued as its leader for the next 15 years. He was appointed a Research Scientist in 1969.

From his arrival in Coffs Harbour, he has taken on the oversight of the small forestry herbarium which had been established some years earlier under the curatorship of an outstanding field botanist, Harold Hayes (1894-1971). With Harold, one of his research duties was to prepare field descriptions and keys to the rainforest trees of NSW, particularly those of the North Coast. The first such set of descriptions, prepared by Alex Floyd and Harold Hayes, and detailing the family Lauraceae, was published as Forestry Commission Research Note No.3 in 1960, and the second followed in 1961. After a gap of some years, the series resumed in 1973 with Alex Floyd as the sole author, with twelfth and last in the series appearing in 1983. It is these notes, and the desire to have their information produced in a single, consolidated form that provides the basis for this present work.

Because of Alex Floyd’s outstanding knowledge of rainforest flora, the Forestry Commission arranged in 1976 for his secondment to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service so that he could undertake a review of the conservation status of the State’s rainforest communities. He transferred to the Service in 1980 but has continued to assist the Forestry Commission on botanical matters as well as making use of and supplementing the now much expanded and comprehensive herbarium at the Coffs Harbour Forestry Office. He retired from the Public Service in 1988.

The genus Floydia (Proteaceae) has been named after Alex Floyd, and at least two species, Boistoa floydii and Cryptocarya floydii are named in his honour: all are rainforest plants of the North Coast of New South Wales and all, most appropriately, are described in this book.

42

42 Dept of Forests publication March 1977

Don Foreman43 (1945-2004) joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1969 as a botanist. He worked all over PNG, departing for the University of New England in 1975.

Portrait Photo: M. Fagg 1998

Don was born on May 27, 1945 in Trangie, central New South Wales. He was the second eldest of four, with three sisters Elizabeth, Patricia, and Jennifer. The family farmed a property ‘Corolbigne’ near Trangie until Don and Elizabeth were of secondary schooling age when the family moved nearer to Dubbo and farmed at ‘Fairfield’. Each of the children won scholarships to university. Don’s sisters attended The University of Sydney while Don was a student at the University of New England at Armidale. Don graduated in 1969 with majors in Botany and Zoology and in the same year took up a position as Forest Botanist at Lae, Papua New Guinea. (Refer to article by Barry Conn in this issue for details of Don’s time in New Guinea).

After leaving Papua New Guinea in 1975, Don returned to his alma mater, the University of New England (UNE), Armidale, to complete his MSc and take up employment as a tutor in the Botany Department. He and Joy took up residence on a 5-acre block near Uralla (later to move into Armidale itself). At UNE he was responsible for preparation of the dreaded first-year plant biology practicals and delivered lectures on plant biology to first- and second-year students. He was also a teacher/assessor for external plant biology students. UNE was a pioneering institution in distance learning (probably even before the term was coined) and remains a leader in this field.

In recognition of his teaching contribution to the department, Don was promoted to the position of lecturer in the Botany Department. As well as his teaching duties, he was instrumental in establishing the student herbarium within the Botany Department. These were fruitful, if busy years for Don and Joy – not only long days teaching and writing theses, but there were also domestic changes with two children, Maryanne and John born in 1977 and 1979, respectively.

After being awarded his MSc, Don embarked on a Ph.D., ‘The morphology and phylogeny of some Monimiaceae (sensu lato) in Australia’, which he successfully submitted in 1985. Toward the end of his writing up period, Don was offered two jobs in botanical institutions one in Cairns, and one in Melbourne. Don’s wife Joy was a Colac (Victoria) girl, and this, coupled with perceived better prospects down south helped to swing the vote to take the Melbourne offer. In February 1984, Don joined the botanical staff at the National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. He and Joy moved to Lara (near Geelong) after being convinced that Melbourne was but a short train trip away. The proximity to the nearby Brisbane Ranges, to become one of his favourite botanising haunts, was another

43 Obituary: Donald Bruce Foreman 1945-2004. Source: https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/foreman donald.html Retrieved 6 June 2019 Extracted from: Neville Walsh, National Herbarium of Victoria, ASBS Newsletter No.119, June 2004. Portrait Photo: M. Fagg 1998. Used with Australian Government Permission

attraction. His duties at MEL were, apart from his ongoing Proteaceae and Monimiacae research, identification of Cannabis for the Victoria Police and general identifications for the public. During this time, Don showed what was to be a hallmark of the man - an unquestioning readiness to take on new tasks. He took on the tasks of design and editing the fledgling Flora of Victoria, a project initially championed by Barry Conn before his defection to Sydney. This was also a time where far-sighted folk were beginning to acknowledge the potential of computer technology, when ‘portable’ disks were the size of LP vinyl records, and printers were not much faster than efficient handwriting. Don accepted the task of instigating and developing a computer databasing system for the herbarium collection, long before the AVH seed had produced its first epicotyl. At the same time, he quietly undertook the editing of the house journal Muelleria. Contributors to the volume, particularly taxonomic ingénues (I readily put my hand up here), vividly recall Don’s tireless assistance in bringing sometimes feral manuscripts into an acceptable format and organising the preparation of illustrations and maps that brought to the author’s submissions a sometimes-generous air of professionalism.

This was a period of upheaval at MEL, with many staff and nearly all the collections having to relocate while substantial remodelling of and additions to the herbarium building were underway. This involved the movement of hundreds of cubic metres of specimens to temporary lodgings, construction and destruction of temporary shelving and keeping tabs on where everything was. Helen Aston guided and recorded the movement of every individual bundle of specimens and created a system whereby mounted and unmounted Australian and foreign collections, kept apart for many decades, could be merged into a much more useful arrangement. Other staff were often called upon to lend muscle power in moving specimens and cupboards. None attacked these tasks more avidly than Don, and many times Don’s grey Holden ute and his well-used handsaw were commissioned to move, build, and destroy. Many lunchtime barbecues were enjoyed burning the many offcuts from the temporary shelving in now nearly forgotten structures known locally, if not affectionately as the ‘T shed’ and the ‘Rat hut’ (both named for good reason). The new Herbarium was officially opened in 1988, although things were not back to anything like normal until well into the following year.

In the mid-nineties, responding to the whiff of corporate dynamics that permeated the air, the herbarium underwent significant structural change. Don took the position of Collections Manager in July 1994, where he continued in his Muelleria editorship and Proteaceae taxonomic work but added to his quiver the arrows of responsibility for curation of the approximately 1.2 million MEL specimens, a large part of which task involved further development of the database. A close working relationship with our first (and now senior) databaser Joan Thomas, and curation staff member Cathryn Coles, created a team that allowed the potential of a completely databased collection to be glimpsed. During this time too, the introduction of fees for plant identification (another domain of Don’s responsibility) was introduced without the walls of the bastille being rent asunder. A flood in the library, brought about by some dubious architectural modifications, threatened many irreplaceable volumes. The ankle-deep slosh on the floor called for a near-nautical ‘all hands-on deck’ and inspired the preparation of an emergency plan, the likes of which the herbarium until then had never considered. With Librarian, Helen Cohn and Chief Botanist, Jim Ross, Don took this task in his stride and soon a series of handsome ‘wheelie-bin’ emergency units, and associated instructions, designed to cope with almost anything from delivery of WMD to premature infants, appeared strategically throughout the building.

In all his duties Don had extraordinary unflappable patience in the face of taxonomic, technological, and human adversity, and a zeal for assisting others. This is an attribute that, perhaps above all others, colleagues and visitors to MEL will associate with Don. It is this trait that rendered him of value as Australian Botanical Liaison Officer (ABLO) at Kew, a position he filled from September 1996 to August 1997. Don’s records show more than 260 enquiries from Australian and New Zealand botanists were fielded during this period, fortytwo major enquiries dealt with for Kew staff, twenty-nine visiting botanists hosted, further works on Proteaceae, Monimiaceae and families for the Flora of Victoria completed. After completing his stint at Kew, Don worked with Susanne Renner at the University of Missouri, St Louis, attempting to use DNA evidence from Atherospermataceae to time major disjunction events. This work was published in 2000.

Don’s association with MEL finished on returning to Melbourne in December 1997. During 1998 and 1999 he and Joy upped stumps and moved to Canberra where Don worked as an editor on the Flora of Australia project, assisting with the Poaceae volumes 43 and 44, and the second edition of the introductory volume 1.

Don was always a very keen gardener. The tea-table at MEL had frequently borne offerings from the Foreman’s bounteous vegie patch, and the quality of Don’s weekend often seemed to be measured in cubic metres of soil or compost moved in the home garden. After returning from Canberra at the end of 1999, he and Joy decided to branch out and develop a gardening and maintenance business around his home patch in Lara. Both obtained certificates to operate as a franchise with the Yates company. Although the parent company collapsed in the following year, Don and Joy had established an eager clientele who continued to demand their obviously professional and competent services. Further to their tending gardens, the couple were soon also tending grandchildren with the birth of Maryanne’s children, Lachlan, and Sarah in 2001 and 2002. Don’s devotion to the grandchildren was legendary within the family and among friends. Soon too their son John was lending a hand with the business (which he continues) and Don, wishing to further his skills embarked on a Diploma of Horticulture course at a Melbourne TAFE college in 2003. It was there that one of Don’s lecturers was John Arnott, Curator of the Geelong Botanic Garden. John and Don quickly developed a relationship of mutual respect and Don began an enjoyable association with Geelong Garden as ‘occasional botanist in residence’ from early 2003. Don commenced a systematic program to have all plants in the gardens accurately identified and logged into a cadastral database. In a eulogy at Don’s funeral, John commented that in the Garden’s 152 years history, Don was the first ‘proper’ botanist who had been on the staff. Don was much admired and deeply involved with activities with other staff, Friends of the gardens, voluntary guides and visiting groups. Within this period, Don began some more Flora of Australia editing work, assisting with contributions to the Poaceae volumes. It was doubly tragic then that Don’s re-emergence into taxonomic pursuits on two fronts should be halted by sickness. Don was reluctant to acknowledge his condition, but in late January was hospitalised and in February was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive pancreatic cancer. He was not to leave hospital and died on 9th March 2004.

Don’s gentle and genuine qualities were admired by all who knew him. It was a privilege to have collaborated with him on the Flora of Victoria project, and always enjoyable to spend time in the field where he never failed to bring a pearl of tropical wisdom to my thoroughly temperate botanical repertoire. While visiting MEL only occasionally from 1997, he was a welcome presence, and his passing was deeply felt by all his former colleagues here.

Don collected widely in Australia, but areas rich in Proteaceae and Laurales, e.g., south-west Western Australia and north Queensland, were a major focus.

Donald Bruce Foreman in Papua New Guinea (1969-1975) By: Barry J. Conn, National Herbarium of New South Wales

As a 23-year-old, Don arrived in Papua New Guinea on 20 May 1969 to take up duty as Botanist Class 1 at Forest Botany (at the Lae Herbarium, later to be known as the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium, LAE), Office of Forests. Like so many before him and after, he was initially accommodated at Trans Air Lodge (later Air Niugini Lodge, now the Lae International Hotel) from 20–27 May 1969 while more permanent accommodation was finalized. Don’s initial salary was $1,950, plus an overseas allowance of $1,744 and A.T.S. allowance of $71.00, a sum that now appears to be a very modest total of $3,765. On the 28 May, the day after his 24th birthday, Don was provided a room in a three-bedroom house in the Markham Estate at a rental of $10.43 per fortnight. For those of us who were in PNG during this period, or soon after, will have a major flash-back to be reminded that he was issued with a single Duralium bed, dressing table and stools, a 9 cubic foot refrigerator, sideboard, plus dining table, chairs, and lounge chair, all in glorious Duralium! Total value $420.70. Like many others, Don’s accommodation problems continued, with him requesting a transfer to another residence on the 5 June.

Don’s work program over the first 12 months typifies John Womersley’s (then Assistant Director) policy of maximizing staff exposure to field botany. From 5-7 June 1969, Don collected in the Bulolo, Mt Kiandi, Edie Creek region (Morobe province), with Mark Coode and Andrew Kanis); 20 June–4 July he collected in the Frieda River area (West Sepik province) (with a travelling allowance of $1.75 per day); 16-18 July Mumeng, Mt Kaindi and Wau (Morobe province); 21–27 July Mt Albert Edward (Central province), via Woitape. The Papua New Guinean guides were paid 10c per hour to assist the LAE expedition to the top of Mt Albert Edward. Eleven days later (7 August) he found himself on his first trip to Bougainville, where he collected until 8 September. On the 21st September he visited Open Bay, on the north coast of New Britain, on board the government trawler "Andrewa", before heading back to Bougainville (29 September–14 October; 27 October–8 November Ok Tedi (Western province). The pace continued, leaving little time to adequately process the herbarium collections obtained, from 17–22 December visiting Kassam Pass (Eastern Highlands province), via Dumpu and Amiaba River (camping allowance $1.05 per day); 30 December collecting at Busu (Morobe province). The new year continued the same way as the last ended; 6–16 January 1970 returning to Dumpu and Amiaba; 23–27 January to Mt Otto and Goroka (Eastern Highlands province); 3–6 February Aiyura and Kassam Pass (Eastern Highlands province); 12–17 February Mendik and Arigenang; 9 March–14 April Kilifas (West Sepik province) as part of a combined expedition with the Natural History (BM). During this, Don’s appointment was confirmed (25 March 1970).

During this frenzied botanical activity, Don’s personal life was quietly developing, first indicated in the official records by his request (25 May 1970) for married accommodation. He took local leave from 2–27 July to marry Lorraine Joyce (Joy) Shaw (Swan Marsh, Victoria) on the 11th July 1970. On their return, they moved into 761 Drayton Street, Lae, with four wooden lounge chairs, with cushion – no Duralium for married couples! Married life was to continue to improve, probably because of Joy’s influence; a water heater for the kitchen sink was requested. It seems strange now, but most residences did not have flowing hot water. Even in 1979, like many others, our home in Bulolo (Morobe province) did not

have hot water in the kitchen. Returning to Don’s request for a water heater, he was informed by no less than the District Commissioner that "Minor New Works funds do not run to the supply of sink heaters" – truly a luxury item, unnecessary in the tropics! However, the installation of security screening on the main bedroom was approved.

Professor Noel C.W. Beadle (University of New England) suggested that Don could undertake a research-based post-graduate M.Sc. thesis (23 January 1970) through the UNE. John Womersley agreed to act as co-supervisor (2 February) and to assist in the development of a suitable research program. It was during August 1970 that discussions with Professor Noel C.W. Beadle started about the planning of Don’s preliminary M.Sc. program, with John Williams proposed as a suitable supervisor.

By 1 August, John Womersley must have decided that Don and Joy had had enough of being newlyweds, as we find Don off to Mt Albert Edward and Murray Pass to act as a tour guide for an ANZAAS tour group (1–12 August 1970). This tour was part of the 42nd Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science which was held in Port Moresby. Bob Johns also acted a tour guide for this Congress.

With the Congress out of the way, Don concentrated on processing his numerous herbarium collections from mid-August 1970–17 March 1971. From 18 March–27 May, Joy and Don took their first recreational leave from duty in PNG, visiting friends and relatives in New South Wales and Victoria. He was issued a new two-year employment contract (5 April 1971), effective from the 20th May 1971 ($5,752 per annum). Up until this time, Joy had been working with Posts and Telegraphs in Lae, resigning on 23 July 1971.

It was in July 1971 that Don started his taxonomic review of the Myristicaceae, particularly Horsfieldia.

Don undertook a M.Sc. preliminary examination at the Institute of Technology, Lae (13 August 1971) before leaving for field work in the Kiunga area (Western Province) from 16–27 August. On his return to Lae, he concentrated on his Myristicaceae work, it being his primary research effort until early June 1972. Occasional references to the preparation of a ‘Myristicaceae Technical paper’ (first mentioned 1 February 1972) appear in his monthly diary during 1972. He completed this manuscript on 23 November 1972, in what appears to be his paper on Myristica (Foreman 1974). He completed his manuscript of the Myristicaceae for the Handbooks series on 1 December 1972 (Foreman 1978).

On 24 November 1971, Don started a preliminary review of the Proteaceae as part of developing a suitable M.Sc. research project. He was officially enrolled in the Degree with his candidature to commence from 4 January 1972, with the first Proteaceae loan material arriving in July 1972. He began to focus his research program on the taxonomy of Helicia (Proteaceae) from 12 December of that year.

On the 29th November 1971, Don began his compilation of the Bougainville species checklist, which was finally published 1972 (Foreman 1971, 1972).

Little field work was undertaken during much of the first half of 1972, visiting the Mt Hagen area (Western Highlands Province) (15-18 March); Buso (Morobe Province) with Greg Leach and Heinar Streimann (27 April–1 May); Goroka (Eastern Highlands Province) (31 May–1 June) – presumably to collect Peter Stevens and Jan-Fritz Veldkamp. The first major

expedition for the year was to Sulu, Open Bay, Powell Harbour (New Britain) (12 June–4 July 1972); soon followed by a visit to Mt Ialibu and Mt Giluwe (Southern Highlands Province) (9–20 August); Kainantu area (Eastern Highlands Province) (16–18 October) to collect Myristica womersleyi; and finally, Morehead area (Western Province) (6–17 November). While compiling this summary of his botanical field trips it reminded Barry Conn of the time that Don told him that he spent more time (sometimes days) waiting beside airstrips for aeroplanes that did not arrive, when scheduled, compared to the amount of time he spent collecting plants!

Throughout much of the 1970s, there was an increasing emphasis on the Australian government’s directive that there must be a reduction of the expatriate component of staff by 15% per annum. Early on in this program (from about January 1973), the ‘on-ground’ staff thought that this reduction would be achieved by ‘normal wastage’ by resignation, retirement, and voluntary non-renewal of contracts by individuals. However, everyone was aware that as ‘localisation’ occurred, the replacement of expatriate staff with Papua New Guinean nationals might necessitate the termination of the services of several expatriate staff. The Australian Caretaker Government expected some expatriates to leave before Self-Government (1973) or before Independence (1975), but every encouragement was to be given so that many could remain in service if they were required by the Papua New Guinea government. These were uncertain times for all expatriates. However, Don and Joy continued in PNG, Don’s contract being extended for another two years, until 20 May 1975.

Barry Conn first met Don and Joy in August 1974, when he arrived in Lae (Conn 1991), with his wife Helen and daughter Lori. Many of their social gatherings included both as very welcomed guests. Although Don and Joy did not have any children while in PNG, Joy gave Don a book on how to mix cocktail drinks for Father’s Day! By the time Helen, Lori and Barry arrived for an afternoon barbeque at the Foreman’s, they were both very relaxed and relatively incapable of preparing food for us.

Barry has in the past acknowledged the considerable professional assistance and friendship that Don provided him when he first arrived in Lae (Conn 1991). His willingness to share his knowledge and practical experience provided him with a framework in which he was able to develop his career in botanical systematics. Barry was fortunate to have the opportunity of working once again with Don at the National Herbarium of Victoria (MEL) during the 1980s.

Don was one of the few expatriates who was fortunate to be given the opportunity of working with one of the most diverse and challenging floras, in an extremely rugged demanding country, with Papua New Guineans who so generously and openly welcomed a group of very inexperienced white guys. Botanically, it was an extremely important period in Papua New Guinea.

All of us who worked with Don are richer for that experience.

References

Barker B. (1975) Papua New Guinea Botanical Society. Austral.Syst. Bot.Soc. Nsltr 5: 17-18.

Conn, B.J. (1991) ASBS Member Profile: Barry Conn A.S.B.S. Secretary. Austral.Syst. Bot.Soc. Nsltr. 67: 30-33.

Source: Neville Walsh, National Herbarium of Victoria, ASBS Newsletter No.119, June 2004

Forests, Lae, PNG. (April 1972 dated March). Addenda and Corrigenda (Govt Printer Port Moresby).

Foreman, D.B. (1974). ‘Notes on Myristica Gronov. (Myristicaceae) from Papuasia’, Contrib. Herb. Australiense. 9: 35-44.

Foreman, D.B. (1978). ‘Myristicaceae’ in Handbooks of the Flora of Papua New Guinea, ed. J.S. Womersley, vol. 1: 175-215. Melbourne University Press.

Foreman, D.B. (1998) New species of Helicia Lour. (Proteaceae) from the Vogelkop Peninsula, Irian Jaya. Kew Bulletin 53(3): 672-674.

Source: Barry J. Conn, National Herbarium of New South Wales

Activities at the Lae Herbarium in Don Foreman’s time by Robyn and Bill Barker State Herbarium of South Australia

David Frodin produced an extremely comprehensive review of botany in New Guinea for the 1988 History of Systematic Botany in Australasia symposium (Frodin 1990).

However, he passed over what to some of us were extremely formative (and enjoyable) times with the comment on the Lae Herbarium (LAE) that “Non-national staff on average stayed only a few years”, mentioning very few people by name. As Barry Conn in his article above, has mentioned few of those who spent time at the Herbarium while Don was there, we take this opportunity to try and present a brief snapshot of LAE of the time, the surprising number of botanists who share these memories, and their sense of loss at the passing of one of the quiet stalwarts of this time.

As indicated in Barry’s article, Don joined the staff of LAE at a time when knowledge of the Papua New Guinea flora was in a major phase of expansion under the direction of John Womersley (Frodin 1990). It was a time of high international contribution and Womersley sponsored visits by overseas specialists as well as taking advantage of the Australian colonial administration and its final push towards self-government and independence to build an active, well-staffed, national herbarium (e.g., Barker, Conn & Croft 2003).

Botanical staff were drawn from various quarters and the following botanists/ecologists were all on the Herbarium staff during Don’s time: local plantation owner and agriculturalist Ted Henty (Barker, Conn & Croft l.c.), nationals Michael Galore, Paul Katik, Artis Vinas and Yakas Lelean, Australian Alick Dockrill, New Zealander/New Caledonian Andree Millar (in charge of Botanic Gardens), Britons Mark Coode (1966-72) and Peter Stevens (1970-73), J o Vandenberg (1969-1971), Heinar Streimann (1971-72), Greg Leach (1972), Jim Croft (19731987), Fiji/New Zealander Nigel Clunie (1974-1977), Barry Conn (1974-1975, then to Bulolo) and Bill Barker (1974-1976). Artists employed at the time included expatriates Terry Nolan, Faye Owner and Damaris Pearce, eventually to give way to nationals, Taikika Iwagu and Semeri Hitignuc in the early 1970s.

Bob Johns (1969-71) worked for ANU on Mt Wilhelm for a relatively short time before suffering from altitude sickness, following which he moved to Lae and according to his CV worked as an Ecologist, Division of Botany, Department of Forestry, Lae undertaking research on Anisoptera and Hopea Ecology, before his move to the Bulolo Forestry College. He and Don shared a lasting friendship from this time.

In the same year as Don started in Lae, John Womersley continued a practice he had initiated a couple of years before of offering work in the Herbarium for botany graduates during the long Christmas vacation. Robyn Barker, Ian Noble and Ken Farley from the University of Adelaide spent 3 months at LAE under this scheme, Robyn sharing the single women’s quarters with Joy Shaw (later Foreman) and Jo Vandenberg. Ian and Ken shared the single men’s quarters with Don.

Cooperative expeditions with British Museum/Kew and Leiden herbaria provided opportunities for interaction with overseas botanists.

David Frodin, on the staff of the University in Port Moresby (established in 1965), was a regular visitor to the herbarium. The new University of Technology at Lae had some Forestry studies and there was some minor involvement with the herbarium, but by far the greater contact was with the Bulolo Forestry College. This had a rather large expatriate staff at this time and links between it and LAE (also under the Division of Forests umbrella) were forged by interchange of staff and the presence of a teaching herbarium in Bulolo.

The Wau Ecology Institute (then part of the Bishop Museum of Hawaii) was an active field centre, for entomological research, and the Australian National University’s New Guinea Research Unit had a steady stream of postgraduate research students conducting their research in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. For many years, the Lae Herbarium, as the main institution servicing plant systematics with a broader involvement in plant ecology, was a focus for a constant flow of visiting researchers, many of whom also happened to need their plant collections identified. This, coupled with the fact that John Womersley oversaw the use of the ANU residences in Lae (both were close to the John’s house), meant that many scientists from all over the world were able to visit and live relatively economically ($2 a day rental if we recall correctly). Since the Herbarium had an active nationwide collections program at this time, as can be seen from Barry Conn’s account of Don’s activities, it was also relatively easy for visiting scientists to spend time in the field

David Frodin 1940- 2019 joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1965. In 1971 he became lecturer in Botany at UPNG rising to Associate Professor. He left PNG in the late 1980’s returning to Kew Gardens UK.

David44 was born in Chicago USA in 1940, He was educated at the Universities of Chicago (BS 1963); Tennessee (MS 1964) and Liverpool (MSC 1965). In autumn 1967, he started work on a PhD at Cambridge University (UK) concluding in Nov 1970 with a thesis on Schefflera.

David started in the mid-1960’s in Lae at the Division of Botany and then, after his Ph. D spent 15 years in Port Moresby at UPNG leaving there as Associate Professor.

He has been at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew since 1993, for seven years on staff and then as a research associate, working amongst other things on plants in New Guinea.

David Frodin45 (aka Frodo) died after a short illness. After his earlier degrees, David spent a year employed in the Division of Botany, Lae, New Guinea, as a temporary scientific officer, subsequently undertaking several herbarium study visits and short field trips in Australia and the Far East. From 1971, he was a lecturer in botany in the University of Papua and New Guinea at Boroko, near Port Moresby. Maintaining a constant series of field trips in Papua, New Caledonia, the Bismarck Archipelago, New Britain etc, etc, etc, he collected with Ted Henty, Colin Ridsdale and John Buderus, as well as former staff at Kew. He has a respectable eponymy, with a moderate range of taxa named after him.

44 Source: Flora Malesians ser. 1,8: Cyclopaedia of Collectors, Supplement 11 45 Source: N Hird Kew Gardens September 2019

David was employed as a contract Senior Scientific Officer, in what became the Species Plantarum section from 1st July 1993, retiring on 31st July 2000. Post retirement he became an Honorary Research Associate.

Widely known for his Guide to the standard floras of the world (arranged alphabetically) (for which he won the Engler Silver Medal for the second edition), world checklists (Araceae, Araliaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fagales, Magnoliaceae, Sapotaceae, etc.) – some co-authored with colleagues at Kew – and some opinion pieces (History and concepts of big plant genera, in Taxon 53(3), 2004), his all-consuming interest was in Schefflera and the Araliaceae in general. Having recently published the genus Schefflera in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, he was well on his way to co-authoring accounts in the rest of the region.

Well known as a profuse note taker at any meeting or lecture he attended; you could rely upon David to be one of the first in the audience to ask an insightful question. His conversations were often interesting (even with himself) and, if directed, would concentrate all available relevant information to the enquirer … His informed opinions were well worth listening to. “David was our Wikipedia before the internet.” We have lost a good friend.

David Frodin’s46 detailed his latest projects which had been describing new species in the genus Schefflera (ivy family, Araliaceae, which for Kiwis includes Pseudopanax and Neopanax. There are quite a few in Australia, including Queensland umbrella-tree, Schefflera actinophylla).

He was acting as co-editor/coordinator of a checklist of higher plants for all New Guinea. Regarding the latter, he reckoned there to be about 13,400 species of ferns and flowering plants for New Guinea, the Bismarcks, and the Raja Ampat Islands (but not including Bougainville or the other Solomon Islands), with more than half of the species (and about 55 genera, some of them large trees) only found therein. They had been using records of collections, including a considerable number collected by and distributed from the Division of Botany, Department of Forests [as then was], Lae, with several of their contemporaries, including Mark Coode and Bob Johns, among the collectors. They had also been aided by the PNG Plants project, which was an initiative of Barry Conn (who was on the Lae staff and then Bulolo in the 1970s) and its website remains active.

So, getting such a project finished (it has included many commentators for plant families) was for him a fitting late stage, starting with the mid-1960s in Lae and then, after his Ph.D., in Port Moresby for 15 years at UPNG, leaving there as Associate Professor. [The current head of Botany at Lae, Robert Kiapranis, was in his last plant systematics class in 1985.]

David Frodin’s47 described the Georeferencing of specimens in the Division of Botany at Lae.

David saw a Nature paper (from 2016) on quantifying the range of plant form and function (The global spectrum of plant form and function) fronted by Sandra Diaz (at Córdoba, Argentina) which was in the references for another paper he had recently read, “Coordinate Cleaner” in Methods in Ecology and Evolution (2019) by Alexander Zizka et al.

46 David Frodin personal communication 22 February 2019 47 David Frodin personal communication 2nd March 2019.

The paper entitled “Coordinate Cleaner” described functions relating to improving the quality of coordinates used in georeferencing. It was the consistent introduction of coordinates on collection labels in which the PNG Department of Forests was something of a pioneer.

Georeferencing of specimens was one relative innovation introduced by the Division of Botany at Lae perhaps 60 years ago. It was then relatively rare amongst botanical institutions – and today helps account for the relatively good showing of PNG amongst specimens from tropical countries documented in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), a public website. [The PNG records on that site are there particularly thanks to the contributions made by Barry Conn’s PNG Plants project initiated several years ago, the former National Herbarium of the Netherlands (now NCB Naturalis) in Leiden (which databased and imaged all three major Dutch herbaria earlier this decade; there is some overlap between the two due to duplicate specimens), and what the Australian Virtual Herbarium has contributed – and that was partly the work of Jim Croft, at Lae from 1973 (but in Canberra from around 1987).] If you go into GBIF and look at the general dot map for world plants, that may give you an idea, and you can also look up contributing “publishers” although for a newcomer it may not be that straightforward. He did not know exactly when the practice started at Lae.

In general, the standard seems to have been to the nearest 5 minutes unless the collections were from an area with several landmarks. What they did have on site was a considerable range of surplus World War II topographical maps along with what was available in the T504 1:250,000 series (and various others).

[Incidentally, T504 never covered New Britain; they had to use WW2 material along with a redrawn version made in Konedobu showing potential survey strip sites. He still has a copy of the latter, in 3 1/2 sheets. He was on most of the early 1966 survey in western NB which was led, if his memory was correct, by Neil Brightwell.]

More generally, Womersley wrote a work on tropical herbarium practice. David thought that this contributed to raising awareness in UNESCO during the “transitional times” of the 1960s of the need to establish a repertoire of good practice for existing and future collections.

He closed with a note that dedicated forest botanists who do a lot of field work may obtain a better insight into the flora than others who have less involvement with the forest, or “florawriters” often working from afar.

That thought comes from talks with Alec Floyd in NSW in 1967 – that discussion stayed with him for half a century. Field work he did with Alec led to a paper in Telopea in the 1970s and, relatively recently, being referenced in White Beech: The Rainforest Years by Germaine Greer.] On the other hand, time in the Port Moresby region involved working with one of PNG’s more distinctive floras, including a significant herbaceous element.

David Frodin48 described information re-records for various botanists.

The Rijksherbarium in Leiden (later National Herbarium of the Netherlands, now folded into the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre which also encompasses zoology, palaeontology, and geology as well as exhibitions, etc., and remains in Leiden) was long a major player in and part-sponsor of Flora Malesiana. It became the main point of contact in Europe for regional

48 David Frodin personal communication 25th April 2019

workers, including to some extent those in the British colonial and post-colonial sphere, and this was reflected in the distribution of duplicates of collections.

Thus, in PNG, the Division of Botany sent duplicates in the following order: Leiden (what is now Naturalis), Queensland Herbarium, Canberra (what is now the Australian National Herbarium, part of CSIRO), Harvard University (though interest there dropped markedly after 1954 or so, partially returning in the 1970s with appointments of interested people), Kew, Bogor, Singapore, the New South Wales National Herbarium in Sydney, the Bishop Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh; there were also “smaller” players and various specialist recipients (over time, the ranks and recipients changed, and UPNG was added from the mid-1970s). Their field “commission” during his time at Lae in the 1960s was to secure 10-11 replicates of any one number where possible (often not possible unless you had cut down a tree, shot off a large branch, or could obtain enough flushes from easier-to-harvest smaller trees OR logistical or other factors were impediments). David thought that this level was, historically, exceeded only by those making some income from collecting – more common before World War II.

Hence, in the Netherlands is the best set of Division of Botany duplicates outside Papua New Guinea (with perhaps some exceptions, but more analysis would be needed). Now that all of these have been imaged at medium- to high-resolution this is an extremely important resource – nothing comparably comprehensive has been done for most of the other sets so far (e.g., at Kew some holdings have been done, but only for an exceedingly small number of families including the yams, Dioscoreaceae, and known type specimens). As David had noted before, PNG Plants, organised in part by Barry Conn, is the next best thing (it covers all the Queensland Herbarium holdings and many at Canberra and Sydney too), and there is also the Australian Virtual Herbarium. In turn, these records are indexed by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and have been used in many biodiversity and conservationrelated studies, the more so if they had been provided with latitudes and longitudes when originally processed (David may have mentioned this – that they were already doing that at Lae by the mid-1960s, and he suspected Womersley began that after they had started to get good 1:250,000 topographic maps (the T504 series) and (after his time at Lae but whilst he was at UPNG), the 1:100,000 T601-series (some of the survey teams for that being accompanied by botanists, for example, in central New Britain which otherwise would have been hard of access).

During his time at the Forestry College, Bob Johns also ensured some duplicate specimens went to Leiden (he did not distribute through Lae, but directly, nor did he use the NGF or LAE series as David recalled).

David Frodin various reminisces49 re PNG Times Past

Kew Gardens sponsored and in 1982 published the translation of "Orchids of German New Guinea" by Rudolf Schlechter (originally published in 1911-14, with the figures in the 1920s). It is a primary work that all others involved with orchids relied on, like Neville Howcroft and Andree Millar.

Alec Floyd worked at the Division of Botany in the 1950s, and I think for a time he was assistant botanist to Womersley. Alec left PNG on account of his operation. Reference 1955 (Flora Malesiana Cyclopaedia of Collectors). Otherwise, it adds considerably to the brief entry for him in that work (only the trip to New Britain is mentioned, but it was interesting to

49 Personal communication David Frodin 15th May 2019

learn about the kauri pine stands therein. Details of his tours could now be worked out, at least in part, from online sources such as Australia's Virtual Herbarium and PNGPlants which include individual collection entries. Later Alec was with the NSW Forestry Service and worked as a forest botanist at Coff’s Harbour. He is the author, first, of several pamphlets on NSW rainforest trees and then a definitive book which appeared in the 1990s (and has had a second edition since). He has been inducted into the Order of Australia for his achievements.

David Frodin found two collections by Alec Floyd in the Kew herbarium, both from the Bulolo Plantation areas and representing the same species of Araliaceae. The first was made in 1954 and does not have coordinates on the (single) mimeographed label; the second dates from 1955 with a second, typeset label which includes them in addition to a mimeographed label like that used in 1954. David would probably have to see more material from around that time to obtain a better idea.

The typeset label would have been printed for a batch of specimens from a given locality, including coordinates, and a few specific details filled in such as the plant family or name, NGF-number, and elevation, and added to specimens along with the mimeographed label.

Later, offset reproduction was introduced, and all information was included on one label about a quarter of the size of the old quarto paper format (8 by 10 inches), thus 4 by 6 inches. That remained usual at least through the 1970s. Maplets began to be added to specimens from the 1970s.

Pieter van Royen (1923-2003) was educated in the Netherlands and then was a botanist at the then Rijksherbarium (National Herbarium) of the Netherlands until c. 1962; from there, he came to Lae where he was on Womersley’s staff for three years, departing in 1965 around the time the staff and collections moved into the first part of the permanent buildings (they had been in an old bungalow or pre-war or WW2 vintage: the site of the Botanic Garden had been a plantation). During his time in Lae, he did a fair amount of field work, began his work towards what became his Alpine Flora of New Guinea (including expeditions to the Saruwaged Range and elsewhere), and began to compile the first parts of a Manual of Forest Trees. David did not know if he participated in any of the resource assessment surveys. After Lae and a spell in Brisbane without employment, he was hired by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum as their botanist in 1966 or 1967 (David visited him there in May 1967) Pieter stayed there until retirement in 1983, afterwards moving to mainland USA. His major work was Alpine flora of New Guinea in 4 volumes, which was by and large a single-handed effort with also an interested specialist German publisher (Cramer) involved (who was not afraid to take on “high-risk” material like that).

Andy Gillison was initially a cadet, as far as David can remember associated with DASF but transferred to Forestry around 1964 as botanist-ecologist, but in 1966, during David’s time, again transferred to ForCol Bulolo before repatriating around 1971. Bob Johns was Andy’s successor there, responsible for forest botany.

One of the projects Andy undertook while at Lae was a study of ebonies, Diospyros. For this, he took at least one field trip to the Milne Bay Islands, which were a centre for ebony

carving. There were already concerns about resource depletion. Parts of this genus in New Guinea are taxonomically “difficult”; genomics may throw some light on what is going on.

Andy participated also in expeditions, including the Doma Peaks Expedition (a joint undertaking of the Rijksherbarium and the Division of Botany), where he preceded David as Lae’s representative (the two Dutch persons were Cornelius Kalkman and Wim Vink, both earlier in the Netherlands New Guinea forestry service). His main contribution appeared in the Dutch journal Blumea along with Kalkman and Vink’s general report.

There will be more on them, and others, in Malesian Plant Collectors and Collections by M.J. van Steenis-Kruseman (1950, with two supplements respectively in 1958 and 1974). The accounts of individuals in this book are also available online.

David Frodin has written accounts of biological exploration, the most definitive in Ecology of Papua (2007).

Thomas Gordon Hartley50 (1931-2016) joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1961, He departed PNG in 1965.

. Tom Hartley was a long-term staff member of the Australian National Herbarium (CANB) and a valued colleague to those who worked there. Born and educated in the USA, Tom worked for CSIRO from 1961 to 1965 (as botanist for the Phytochemical Survey of New Guinea) and again from 1971 until his retirement. In the intervening period he was a curator at the Herbarium of the Arnold Arboretum (A) at Harvard University.

Photo: ex Flora Malesiana 1974.

Post-retirement Tom continued to work at CANB, writing treatments for works including the Flora of New Caledonia and the Flora of Australia, until just a few years ago when forced to stop due to ill health. Tom’s lifetime of research focused on studies of the family Rutaceae and he collected extensively in New Guinea, Australia, and the Pacific. The specimens held at CANB are a valuable resource for research by staff and visiting scientists. In his private life Tom was also a talented jazz pianist.

Photo: Extracted from ANBG staff photo collection.

Australia/PNG specimen collection localities for 'Hartley, T.G.' from AVH 22/3/2016. 3609 collections recorded.

50 Source: https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/hartley-thomas-gordon.html. Retrieved 28 May 2019. Extracted from: pers. com. A. Monro 11/3/2016; Obituary, Canberra Times, 19/3/2016. Used with Australian Government permission

Edward Ellis (Ted) Henty51 (1915-2020) joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium in 1957. He worked throughout PNG. He left PNG in 1984.

E.E. (Ted) Henty, noted for his work in the Papua New Guinea National Herbarium (LAE), died aged 86 at East Keilor, near Melbourne on 23 February 2002 after an illness of 6-8 months. Those dealing with New Guinea plants will know of his extensive collections in the NGF and subsequent LAE series from all over the country. The new Composite genus Piora from the alpine grasslands on Mt Piora was just one discovery made in 1963 with Sherwin Carlquist.

Those who knew Ted will consider him a fine field botanist, arguably one of the finest that has worked in Papua New Guinea. Not one to involve himself with revisionary studies, he was more concerned with the dissemination of floristic, practical, and economic knowledge to the wider user. He preferred to call himself a "didiman" (agronomist). He specialised in grasses and weeds, logical as his home life surrounded the farming of cattle and growing tropical fruit up the Markham Valley from Lae. Nevertheless, his knowledge of the broader flora of Papua New Guinea was vast.

Ted first went to Papua New Guinea in 1949*. He had joined the staff at LAE by 1957*, soon deputising for John S. Womersley, an Assistant Director of Forests in his role as head of the National Herbarium and Botanic Gardens at Lae, and then for Michael Galore in 1976* soon after attainment of independence for Papua New Guinea when Womersley retired after almost 30 years as head. Michael Galore retired in 1983* and Ted became Assistant Director at the time of a major crisis of loss of financial support and staff for the institution. This drew international expressions of support to the Prime Minister and his Ministers. Ted retired in late 1984* with the institution resourced though still inadequately.

In November 1986, * he moved to a property in north Queensland, before moving closer to his son in Melbourne later in his days, when his health deteriorated.

Ted was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. He treated Papua New Guineans and expatriates honestly, fairly and with great compassion. He was a "wantok tru bilong olgeta". Ted was unequalled in Barry's experience as a non-indigenous speaker and writer of Melanesian pidgin. He combined these language skills with compassion to resolve some potentially profoundly serious conflicts between the garden laborers and management at the Lae Botanic Gardens. These conflicts involved bows, arrows, axes, and bush knives (modern managers have it easy!). Ted's management style is best summarised by his response of "I don't see why not" to most proposals - a contrast to the man he deputised for, but that is another story.

51 Source: http://www.cpbr.gov.au/biography/henty-ted.html. Retrieved 29 May 2019.

From: Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 110, (March 2002), by Bill Barker, Barry Conn, Jim Croft. Used with Australian Government permission.

Ted was a great-grandson of Stephen Henty, one of Victoria's famous Henty brothers who settled the Portland area early in the 1800s. His full name Edward Ellis Henty perpetuated that of his father who died in Anzac Cove, Gallipoli on 7 August 1915. It was later in that year, in October, that Ted was born. A photograph of Ted aged 85 appeared with an article entitled "Father I never knew" in the Victorian newspaper Herald Sun Weekend**.

Barry Conn and Bill Barker both first met Ted in August 1974 when taking up appointments as Botanists at the Lae Herbarium. On Barry's first day, after a brief introduction to the Herbarium and staff, Ted and he headed out for the day in the Sankwep logging area with about 30 students from the University of Technology. At the end of the dirt road Ted proceeded in his quiet voice to instruct these students in the art of tree identification. Shortly after beginning his lecture, a tropical downpour started with a vengeance. Unperturbed and apparently unaware of the drenching rain, Ted continued to instruct the students, who gathered closer to hear him over the noise of the rain and huddled over their notebooks to keep them dry. This scene remained unaltered for almost an hour until Ted finally suggested, as if he had just noticed, that they all could return to the safety of the bus. Thirty totally saturated students sat inside the bus, in pools of water for 15 more minutes while Ted completed his lecture. With John Womersley away, Ted threw Bill in the deep end by sending him to the Talasea-Willaumez Peninsula area of New Britain with Artis Vinas for a fortnight's botanising. Almost all conversations were in pidgin.

The ability to identify trees is an essential skill that all tropical field botanists must have. Particularly vital in the tropics is an ability to readily identify harmful plants. Ted was overly sensitive to species of Semecarpus (Anacardiaceae), requiring medical assistance whenever he was exposed to them. He advised Barry to avoid unnecessary contact with this genus. Who better to ask to learn how to identify them but Ted, Barry thought? Unfortunately, Ted would never take him closer than about 150 metres from the trees growing in the Lae botanical gardens. Barry never learned to recognise their diagnostic field characteristics. Consequently, because of Ted's lack of critical instruction, he too developed an ever-increasing sensitivity to these plants!

Ted had a dry sense of humour. Bill remembers being told that as a young Aussie Rules rover his method of contending with giant ruckmen at the bounces was to stand on their feet. Ted also chuckled as he told him how he truncated one of his fingers while assembling a batch of LAE wood samples using an electrical planer at Lae Technical College. Concerned with stemming the excessive bleeding, he forgot to take the finger with him to hospital and lost all chance of a reunion with it when his assistant returned with the wood samples rather than the severed member. Jim Croft remembers how Ted thought he had been doubly hard done by as his fingers were already too short. He also remembers the humble side of his humour; Ted saw himself as hardly an expert in animal husbandry - his role was simply to ensure the grass was there, the cattle did the real work by grazing the stuff.

Ted Henty52 was very well read in English classic literature. His original plantation house burnt down, and he rebuilt it over the years. He ran a little VW Beetle before the white Datsun. – the VW lacked a rear spring, and he substituted a chunk of wood to keep the chassis off the wheel.

52 Personal communication Mark Coode 30 Dec 2020

Each working day we were reminded of the gentleman in Ted with his ritual of driving Sue Osborn, the Secretary to the Assistant Director, in his little white Datsun sedan to the entrance of the herbarium. He would most genteelly offer his hand to assist her from the car, gather her baggage from the rear and take both his charge and her accoutrements through the front door and up the stairs to her office, before returning to take the car on to its park. Tropical botany has lost a genial, generous, and knowledgeable man.

Major publications53

53 Henty, E.E. (1969). "A Manual of the Grasses of New Guinea". Dept Forests Botany Bulletin 1, 214 pp., 1page Appendix. Henty, E.E. (1970). "Weeds of Coffee in the Central Highlands". Botany Bulletin (Division of Botany, Lae) 4, 22 pp. Henty, E.E. & Pritchard, G.H. (1973). "Weeds of New Guinea & their control", Botany Bulletin (Division of Botany, Lae) 7, 195 pp. Henty, E.E. & Pritchard, G.H. (1975). "Weeds of New Guinea & their control" 2nd edn, Botany Bulletin (Division of Botany, Lae) 7: 180 pp. Henty, E.E. (1978). Polygonaceae. In J.S. Womersley (Ed.). "Flora of Papua New Guinea", Vol. 1 (Melbourne Univ. Press, Carlton), pp. 222-248 Henty, E.E. (1980). "Harmful Plants in Papua New Guinea", Botany Bulletin (Division of Botany, Lae) 12: 153 pp. Henty, E.E. (Ed.) (1981). Handbooks of the Flora of Papua New Guinea, Vol. II (Melbourne Univ. Press, Carlton), 276 pp. Henty, E.E. (Translator) (1984). "Flora of the Bismarck Archipelago for Naturalists" by P.G. Peekel (Division of Botany, Lae), 638 pp. * From Flora Malesiana Bulletin 29 (1976) 2572; 36 (1983) 3876, 3908, 37 (1984) 33, 40 (1987) 378 and the publications cited with this article. ** by J. Hamilton (21 April 2001, p. 9)

Neville Howcroft OBE joined the Dept of Forests in 1965. He worked throughout PNG as a Senior Technical Research Officer, Forest Consultant and University Lecturer from Bulolo/Wau/UNITECH Lae; EHP; WHP; Enga; NGI; Central; Western Province. Lae FRI; Sepik; Irian Jaya; Milne Bay to New Britain Rabaul/Vudal;/UNRE. Neville departed PNG in 2017.

Photo Credit John Davidson. Neville with his signature pipe getting ready to say something for the recorder. Legume Field Day Bulolo mid 1970’s

Neville Henry Simco Howcroft was born in Queensland Australia on the 30th September 1938. Post WW2 he moved around the state with his parents he received his education in Queensland, from schools at Bundaberg, Bowen, Proserpine, Airlie, also on Hamilton Island (by correspondence and developing further, his love for natural history, forests, orchids, insects, in fact flora and fauna in general), then to Thornborough College, in Charters Towers. Finally, at the Technical College Mackay.

At Mackay, he was interviewed for employment in The Queensland Forestry Department, securing a position as a trainee in forestry survey and assessment. He was based at Byfield plantation located in the coastal Yeppoon area in the Rockhampton region. This work experience took him into the central inland eucalypt forest resources near Theodore and Taroom. Other duties included research trials, establishment of species and yield plots measures, general plantation establishment and management was inclusive. He enrolled at the School of HTE (Queensland University), for part time studies in Agricultural Science subjects, Science in Plant life, Science in Animal Life, Science of Soils and of Growing Agricultural crops, gaining passes and certificates in these subjects. He trained in forestry at Byfield for approximately 3 years after which he was promoted to Forestry research and tree breeding section, at Beerwah and Beerburrum for 6-8 weeks further training and practical work experience at Beerwah and Beerburrum. This covered plantation silviculture and tree breeding and seed production, which he continued for the next 7 years again at Byfield in the Forestry

Research section, into species and trials with Pinus and seed tree selection, vegetative reproduction, clonal orchard development, breeding and progeny trials which included the production and testing of hybrids.

(ii)The Papua New Guinea experience (Pre- and Post-independence)

The above Australian experience proved to be valuable in PNG as Eucalyptus as well as Pinus species were already partly established and continued, but needing silvicultural management, during this period in the Eastern and Western Highland provinces. Progressively this was extending to include Central, Madang, Sandaun, and Island provinces as well as the Sepik. Howcroft applied his knowledge and the technology experience he had learnt, into agroforestry as well as training and academic work where required. He established the National Tree Seed Centre at Bulolo to support reliable seed sources, genetic resources, and conservation aimed at becoming part of making the Department self-sufficient in improved seed. A programme had already being initiated by A. Cameron around 1962 Teak and by Dr. J. Davidson for Kamarere field work such as clonal orchard establishment after he had arrived.

During these developments Howcroft’s forestry duties became more diversified involving, forest protection with entomology, while in other areas leading into the establishment of tree breeding programs and seed orchard of several Pinus species using clonal and seedling seed orchard strategies. Howcroft trained staff and initiated PNGs first ever controlled pollination program to produce its first hybrids involving Pinus merkusii provenances and Pinus Latteri. Shortly after this he became responsible for the Araucaria improvement and research program. This now included the establishment of PNG partnering FAO in exploration of natural forestry resources and perceived conservation status. This included estimates of seed production, time, and ease of access and to expedite collections for national and international provenance trials and to identify and recommend ex situ conservation stands. Initially this involved PNG and West Papua Araucaria cunninghamii and hunsteinii and Eucalyptus deglupta. Targets were identified and set by the new senior staff, Mr Barry Gray and Dr. John Davidson, in collaboration with Australia National Tree Seed Centre, ACIAR and overseas supporters and partners interested in specific PNG genera and species.

(ii-i) Notes on Development evolving from this period

After 1975, more interest developed with Acacia species and Santalum. Dr. Davidson left to become head of the Forestry Department of the University of Technology (referred throughout the report here as Unitech, Lae). Other events that influenced development in and from this period beyond 1975 worth noting are:

Through these connections it was possible to secure assistance to get staff trained to collect and process tree seed more efficiently and to operate and develop the PNG National Tree Seed Centre. This came into being after the break down of the original Bulolo cold store facilities which were used during a tragic air crash on the 28th August ,1972, of an Australian Army Caribou aircraft, carrying school cadets. The recovery and storage of the deceased in this national tragedy was able to be carried out due to being equipped with 4 large rooms operating at adjustable storage temperature. The facility was taken over in that emergency as nothing else existed to deal with the current situation at Bulolo or Lae. After all the forensic work had completed, the bodies were repatriated to Port Moresby and eventually to their home province and family for burial.

Seed for our seed production had been returned to the cool rooms but by now the facility cool room structures started to collapse (due to chemicals used to store the bodies) and become unreliable for storing seed (including all our research seed). As the interior walls and roofing started to collapse it became difficult to maintain steady temperature at the required levels. Before this unforeseeable event occurred, I had, with assistance, developed a proposal for a new Seed Store for the existing research centre. It was approved and established through New Zealand Aid. This prevented a seed storage crisis for National and International demand only just on time, but some losses in the seed viability, for the Araucaria seed collection occurred.

(ii-ii) Notes on Publication and Capacity Building

Except for representation at international meetings the earliest publication on forest development came from Forest HQ. There was no time allowed to publish relevant research results. Whatever results and conclusions were reported that met HQ approval was given to apply them in the field.

However, during Dr. Davidson’s Tenure at Bulolo, the results of our field research were published as Tropical Forestry Research Notes. These may be found in the FRI (Forest Research Institute) and University of Technology libraries at Lae. From here on publishing by staff continued.

An important issue addressed by the Australian government and thus the various PNG Government departments including forestry, was the academic and the industrial capacity building of new recruits and enrolled forestry students, including the field staff who had obviously started with the Bulolo Forestry College.

As one of many examples, a course in seed radiography was held at CSIRO Australian Tree Seed Centre, Canberra. Key PNG NTSC staff were also recommended and trained by the National Australian Tree Centre This was probably the first for Neville’s staff of the National Tree Seed Centre to travel outside of PNG. This form of capacity building continued after he transferred to Lae.

Neville enrolled himself with the University of Technology, Lae. He studied and undertook research on a terrestrial orchid genus part time, while working at FRI, and earned a Master of Philosophy degree in 1994.

On the 17th November 2011, he was awarded with an OBE for services to Eco- forestry and conservation of commercial tree species in the Pacific (PNG).

(ii- iii) Sharing the Forest Technology to Industry and Academia

Neville Howcroft was transferred from the Bulolo Research Station and National Tree Seed Centre to join FRI in Lae to continue additional work as a senior Technical officer while still playing a supervisory role on all the work still active including supervision of the relatively new National Tree Seed Centre at Bulolo.

In 1995 he accepted a consultancy position to work as the Project manager on the PNGFA/ITTO Balsa Project in East New Britain which did not start on time because of the September 1994 Volcanic eruption at Rabaul. With selected PNG staff he re-established the industry in the Gazelle peninsula, introduced a tree improvement programme and improved tree seed. Forestry balsa silviculture was taught to farmers rather than allow balsa to be treated

like sugar cane as in Agriculture. This was completed after an extension period ending in 2003/4, ACIAR with the PNG Vudal. Farmers were beginning to grow balsa and use their own planting stock as well as that produced by the project’s forestry nurseries.

ii-iv) Taking Silviculture and Diversity to Agriculture Sectors of Vudal University.

It was during this ITTO Balsa period that he found that the teak genetic resources in the Islands was under threat. He was able to prevent these resources from being harvested. He was able to play a role in the protection of the Vunapalading Teak seed trees selected, with the help of his very capable assistant Mr. John Ohana. The Balsa Project leader position was localized at that time to Mr. John Ohana to ensure continuity when Neville completed his contract.

After a further short period of consultancy in East New Britain, Neville joined the Vudal University to start a Forestry Department in the School of Natural Resources in July 2007.

ii-v) Diversity in the curriculum and to the Rural Farming Communities

The University became the University of Natural Resources and Environment. Originally an Agricultural college, it established a new Department of Forestry. This was not well accepted within the framework of the School of Natural Resources. This was largely due to the dominant agricultural mindset which seemed reluctant to accept the new department and its activities as part of the rural landscape protection and development. However, this new department was encouraged to exercise a partisan role of rural development in the landscape.

This is reflected in the lectures developed for this transition which were:

Forestry on Farms, Horticulture (which included trees for all occasions). The Tree Improvement lectures had elements of seed source improvement and development, conservation of exotic and indigenous species. The need for land use and land care were also infused in these lectures.

Projects established over the period in collaboration with ACIAR were:

a further extension of Balsa research as a follow up to recommendations made by the ITTO project. From experience, the most important project to follow, was the UNRE participation in the Teak Improvement program. This collaborative ACIAR program involved the PNGFA, FRI, as well as NGOs such as OISCA and others, effectively injected new life into the Teak tree breeding program started by Mr. A. Cameron (1962). It followed and complimented the recommendations in a teak genetic resource survey report by Howcroft (2005).

Neville has an inherent interest in Botany as well as well as in other biological sciences and has an orchid, a shrub, and a new insect (a potential Pine pest) named after him. He has personally described several new species of orchids and published many forestry and botanical papers. Concurrent he also provided and published a wide range of scientific illustrations in overseas journals., He and his Bulolo team, can claim to be the first, to have bred the first tropical Pinus hybrid in Papua New Guinea, the Indonesian Pinus merkusii with the continental P. latterii from Thailand, using the controlled pollination techniques that Neville had learnt whilst working for the Queensland Forestry Department on southern exotic pines.

Max Jacobs 1905-1979 during the Second World War 1943-44 collected along the Bulldog track54 . This was in the NGF (New Guinea Forces) Series of collections.

Source Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 14 (MUP) 1996 by L T Carron

Max Jacobs was born on 25th February 1905 in North Adelaide He was educated at Unley High School and the University of Adelaide (B.Sc. 1925; M.Sc., 1936). Max was awarded a Lowrie postgraduate scholarship to the Waite Agricultural Research Institute. He was appointed Forest Assessor in the Federal Capital Territory in 1926 and promoted Chief Forester in 1928. A Commonwealth scholarship took him to the University of Oxford (diploma in forestry, 1931) and to the Forstliche Hochschule Tharandt, Germany (Doctorate in Forest Science, Technische Hochschule Dresden, 1932).

Returning to Australia, Jacobs was appointed a research officer with the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau, Canberra, in January 1933 and that year made a reconnaissance of the then little-known forest resources of the Northern Territory. On 23 December 1933 he married Phyllis Vesper Quinton at St David's Presbyterian Church, Haberfield, Sydney. He carried out original research on the growth stresses of trees and the effects of wind sway and experimented with the use of cuttings for propagating radiata pine. His extensive studies of the anatomy of the bud systems and the silvicultural behaviour of various eucalypts in Australia were to be consolidated in his Growth Habits of the Eucalypts (Canberra, 1955) which became a standard international text. In 1939 he was awarded a fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund and attended Yale University (Ph.D., 1941), United States of America, where he continued his investigations into growth stresses.

Back home, on 19 March 1942 Jacobs was mobilized in the Militia as a temporary Captain and appointed Deputy Assistant Director, Engineering Services, Army Headquarters, Melbourne. In 1943-44 he performed staff duties in the Directorates of Engineering Stores and of Engineering Survey and served briefly in Papua and New Guinea. He transferred to the Reserve of Officers as honorary Major on 8 November 1944. Next month he was appointed Principal and Lecturer in Silviculture at the Australian Forestry School, Canberra. Over fifteen years 'the Doc' lectured to and professionally guided more than three hundred undergraduates from Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Africa. They returned his warmth and interest with respect and affection.

Jacobs was acting director-general (from December 1959) of the Commonwealth Forestry and Timber Bureau and its director-general (from May 1961). He played a leading role in establishing the Australian Forestry Council in 1964 and chaired its first standing committee; he also chaired other bodies connected with forestry or the forest industries, among them the

54 David Frodin personal communication 11th April 2019

timber industries committee of the Standards Association of Australia and wrote numerous papers and reports on Australian forest policy. In 1966 he was appointed I.S.O.

After retiring from the Commonwealth Public Service in February 1970, Jacobs worked as a consultant to several national and international bodies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, at whose request he undertook a massive rewrite of its Eucalypts for Planting (Rome, 1979). He went on several missions abroad, particularly in connection with eucalypts. In addition, he was President of the agricultural and forestry section of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, of the Royal Society of Canberra (1948-49) and of the Rotary Club of Canberra (1956-57). His main recreation was golf.

Survived by his two daughters, Jacobs died on 9 October 1979 in Woden Valley Hospital and was cremated. To commemorate his contribution to the discipline, the Institute of Foresters of Australia initiated the M. R. Jacobs Fund in 1983. Administered by the Australian Academy of Science, the fund assists individuals to conduct forestry and forest-industry research projects, and to participate in conferences.

Professor Bob Johns (1944-2019) was a graduate in botany and geography from New Zealand who spent most of his working life as botanist, ecologist, academic, and collector, focussed on the flora of PNG. He initially went to PNG in 1968 as a geographer with ANU, but in 1969 joined the Dept of Forests Lae Herbarium and discovered his true calling was botany. From 1971-79, he was the Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Botany at Bulolo Forestry College. In 1979 he moved to UNITECH Lae where he was initially Senior Lecturer in Botany and Ecology, then Reader in Forest Botany, and finally from 1987 to 1990, Professor and Head of the Forestry Department. He left PNG in 1990 to work at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew UK where he continued to focus on PNG flora until he retired in 2004, following which he continued his botanical studies of PNG through consultancies for about 10 years until his health started to deteriorate.

Bob Johns was born on 14th July 1944 at Kaitaia in the far north of New Zealand and not far from where his earliest New Zealand ancestor arrived in the 1830’s. He graduated from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1966 with a B.Sc. in Botany and Geography and with a M.Sc. in geography in early 1968. Immediately after completing his master’s degree Bob moved to PNG as a Research Assistant for the Department of Geography, Australian National University, to manage their field station on Mt Wilhelm. It was the beginning of 22 years working in PNG before moving to the UK in 1990.

In 1969 Bob joined the PNG National Herbarium in Lae as an ecologist and began his botanical career. In 1971 he took up a position of Lecturer in Botany at the PNG Forestry College, Bulolo, teaching botany, taxonomy, dendrology, soils, geomorphology, geology, and forest ecology. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer 1974 and continued in this role until 1979 when moved to Lae to take up a position at UNITECH. It was during this period at Bulolo that he began collating material on PNG flora for use as course material for students. His major publication during this period was the textbook ‘Common Forest Trees of Papua New Guinea’ which comprised 520 pages in 12 parts and was published by the PNG Department of Forests. At the time of his death in 2019 it was still being used as a basic textbook for forestry students at Bulolo and Lae. During this period, he developed his great love for the forests of PNG that was to dominate the rest of his life’s work.

In 1979 he moved to the PNG University of Technology (UNITECH) at Lae as Senior Lecturer in Botany/Ecology, subsequently becoming Reader in Forest Botany in 1985 and then Professor and Head of the Forestry Department from 1987 until 1990 when he moved to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London to take up the position of Curator for Ferns and Gymnosperms. During this period, his interests became more academic with a greater focus on documenting particular PNG species, especially ferns, rattans and Myrtaceae, publishing many papers on these. However, unlike many academics, but like several of his PNG contemporaries, he wrote them primarily for the benefit of the local foresters and forestry students, preferring to publish them in local journals like Klinkii, the Journal of the Forestry

Society of Papua New Guinea, or as publications of the PNG Department of Forests, rather than in more prestigious international botanical journals whose main readership is other academics. Two major publications during this period were

• ‘The Ferns and Fern Allies of Papua New Guinea’ in 12 Parts with Parts 1-5 being written in association with A. Bellamy and published by the PNG Department of Forests and Parts 6-12 by himself and published as a UNITECH Research Report. • The Flowering Plants of Papuasia, Part 1 – Magnolidae; Part 2 - Hamamelidae, Part 3 Caryphyllidae, published by UNITECH Forestry Department with funding from the Christenson Research Institute. He was an active participant of the Flora Malesiana Project which commenced in 1989, attending all their symposia until his death in 2019. His contributions to the floristics and ecology of the vascular flora of Malesia was recognised posthumously at the 11th International Flora Malesiana symposium in Brunei in 2019.

He taught many of PNG’s current foresters and set extremely high standards in his courses. For example, he set the pass mark for Dendrology as 85%, a requirement met by nearly all graduating students. Despite this he was greatly respected by his students. Following his death, one who subsequently became very prominent in Forestry in PNG wrote:

We forestry community in PNG all are deeply saddened to hear about the passing on of our friend and mentor, professor late Bob Johns, who to some of us was more than just that. He was a defender, father, leader and more honourably a "great teacher' in the truest sense. I can humbly consider myself as one of those many forestry students who late Professor Johns would always find favours, approve, and provide support to.

Although working in London from 1990, Bob continued to mentor many Papua New Guinean foresters and botanists from both UNITECH and the University of PNG, providing encouragement and support as they continued their studies for a higher degree.

He was also an excellent organiser, organising the construction of squash courts at Bulolo and securing NZ Government funding to build the library at the Bulolo Forestry campus, as well as European Union funding to build the forest herbarium at the Taraka campus. In addition, he arranged for UNITECH to open a Guest House, which he managed from 1982 until his departure from Lae in 1990.

During his time working at Kew, Bob organised two major collecting efforts in West Papua: The Bird’s Head Expeditions around Manokwari, the Arfaks and the Kebar Valley, and, from 1997, the Mt Jaya project collecting 5000+ specimens from mangrove to alpine peaks at 4884 m. The latter resulted in over 30 new species to science including

Calamus johnsii W.J. Baker & J. Dransf., a species of rattan cane Musa johnsii Argent, a species of wild banana, (see photo on next page) Pilea johnsii A.K. Monro, a species of rose Elaeocarpus johnsii Coode.

He also co-edited a major publication on ferns, was responsible for bringing together the ‘Fern Volunteers’ – a remarkable group of volunteers who have geo-referenced and databased huge swathes of Kew’s SE Asian material - and produced in conjunction with botanical artist Rosemary Wise of Oxford a series of 12 pictorial posters depicting typical plants in the 12 Vegetation Zones of PNG, which was sponsored by Rio Tinto. While at Kew he was also awarded a Kew Medal in recognition of his interaction with the community.

He retired from Kew in 2004 but continued as a Research Fellow, which allowed him to continue his work on the ecology of the flora from both PNG and West Papua, with particular emphasis on the ferns. He also undertook several research consultancies, including running an extensive collecting programme in southern PNG for the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT).

Bob died on 21st April 2019 at Kingston Hospital, London from complications arising from diabetes and a stroke in May 2018.

A former colleague at Bulolo, Phil Pope, wrote:

The only member of staff who appeared to be totally unaware of division between the races was Bob Johns, a New Zealand ecologist who joined the staff late in 1971 and who held many parties to which everyone was invited. I do not think he was aware of the colour of another’s skin.

One of his former students wrote:

Late Professor Bob truly gave his life to Papua New Guinea and helped lay the foundation stones on which forestry, environment and climate change issues and policies are directed and developed in Papua New Guinea's development space.

Bob was a cheerful ‘bon viveur’ who will always be remembered by his PNG forestry contemporaries for his broad smile, sharp and cheeky humour, wonderful parties, excellent cooking along with his dedication to his students and his forestry studies, and his enduring love of Papua New Guinea. His heart always belonged to Papua New Guinea.

Bob Johns with Musa johnsii

Bob Johns on Field Trips PNG

One of Twelve Posters depicting Flora of Different Vegetation Zones in New Guinea which Bob Johns Organised and Contributed the Technical Information in Association with Botanical Artist Rosemary Wise from Oxford. The posters were part of a project sponsored by Rio Tinto and were produced by the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.

Bulolo Forestry College Staff Photo In 1970’s Photo credit G Walker. Back, l-r: Eric Asari, Aubeta Kairo, Armstrong Bellamy (aka Armstrong Maibani), Kapi Rau, Alistair Hay, Bob Johns, Philip Franklin MBE. Front, l-r: Wayne Woof, Claus Romijn, John Godlee, Siagi Kalogo, Ken Hart, Noel Peters

UNITECH Forestry Department Staff & Students in 1980’s Prof Bob Johns photo credit George Walker

Joseph (Joe) Jaroslav Havel, born in 1930, joined the Dept of Forests TPNG, in 1953 as a Cadet Forest Officer. After graduating from the AFS in 1955, his postings included Forest Officer, Acting Regional Forest Officer, and Inaugural Principal Forestry College Bulolo. His postings included 1955-56 in Bulolo; then 1957-58 Bulolo and the Highlands, followed by 1959-60 in Rabaul. From 1962 to 1964 he was instrumental in establishing the Bulolo Forestry College Bulolo.

Joe Havel with students studying botanical specimens at the PNG Forestry College Bulolo Photograph 1964 Dept. of Forests Port Moresby.

In 1965 due to family illness, he resigned. He restarted in WA in 1965, practically from scratch, but ultimately progressed to Director of Research and Planning in Department of Conservation and Land Management in WA.

CHALLENGING JOBS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA FOREST DEPARTMENT – Joe Havel

Going back to my New Guinea career is a long trip – sixty-five years to when I first contacted the Director of PNG Forests Department about a possible career there in 1953. For this reason, I am focusing on the events that are easier to remember and on the things that were important to me, rather than the grand scheme of things. Hopefully, these events will also be easier to read about.

I wrote to the Department after becoming an Australian citizen. I was in my third year of forestry studies, the first year in Canberra. I was by then already engaged to be married, so my main consideration was whether I would get accommodation in New Guinea as a married man. The Director, Jim McAdam, assured me in writing that I could, so I took up a cadetship

for the rest of my studies in Canberra, which required signing up for five years of service in New Guinea after graduation. During the rest of my studies in Canberra, I began to prepare myself for that, such as studying whatever technical information I could get on New Guinea. It was not very much, mainly war time manuals on the trees of New Guinea, Lane- Poole’s report and a basic textbook of Pidgin English.

I arrived in PNG in mid-January 1955, straight after graduation, marriage, and honeymoon. In Port Moresby I had an introductory interview with Director Jim McAdam, an imposing man, both physically and intellectually. He informed me that I would be sent to Bulolo on the northern flanks of the dividing range, and that I would be primarily working on plantation establishment. Next day I was taken to Brown River by a ranger, and it was a shock to the system: couple of mildew and moss-covered tents; reeking of sweat and accommodating a handful of highlanders. The ranger brought their rations and treated them for malaria and tropical ulcers. They were establishing a trial plot of teak. I wondered what I had let myself in for, and how my wife would cope. The next day I flew to Bulolo where everything, especially climate and accommodation, were much more favourable, and my outlook improved considerably.

The next day after that the real adjustment began, supervising a group of Waria workers, normally survey hands but conscripted to the weeding of the newly established hoop pine plantations. I tested my book knowledge of Pidgin English on them and adjusted my pronunciation. As my knowledge of the language improved, my responsibility was increased to several gangs of highlanders, each thirty men strong, but only a few of whom could speak Pidgin. Our responsibility was not restricted to work supervision. It included supply of food and dispensing antimalarial drugs and sorting out personal and inter-personal conflicts.

Three months into my service in Bulolo I had to request the Director for married accommodation, as my wife could not continue her nursing training because of pregnancy. After some delays, the Director honoured his word, and my wife was able to join me. By that time, the plantation work changed from weeding established plantations to clearing land for new plantations. It was done with axes, and a great deal of training and persuasion was needed to change the old methods of our highland workers, based on stone axes, to a safer and more productive ways. My two years of work on forestry gangs in Western Australia came in handy, but it did not prepare me for a major incident, when a couple of Hagens dropped a tree on a Chimbu, causing a compound fracture of one of his legs. It took all my persuasion to stop the two gangs getting stuck into one another with axes, to clear a track to the road and to construct a rough stretcher to get the injured Chimbu into a jeep and hospital. It made me acutely aware that my past training was inadequate for the task.

A positive aspect of this clearing work was the opportunity to study the felled trees with leaves, flowers and fruits becoming available on the ground instead of being thirty metres or more off the ground. I sent specimens to the herbarium in Lae. Some of them turned out to be previously undescribed species.

The second year at Bulolo was easier than the first and I was able to begin researching the plantation establishment for klinkii pine, which in all respects was a superior timber species to the hoop pine they were planting. This was because of the availability of plantation methodology developed for hoop pine in Queensland. I acquired a small group of research assistants form the Buka Island, who were better educated and were superb climbers, which was handy when investigating the seed collection and processing. The best klinkii specimens were sixty metres tall.

At the end of that year my family went on leave in Western Australia and whilst there we bought a cheap property just north of the capital Perth. On return to Bulolo I managed the plantations for three months whilst the senior forester, Don McIntosh was on leave. By then it was a sizeable operation with several hundreds of workers, and the responsibility was correspondingly heavy. After Don’s return and the arrival of a newly graduated forester, my duties began to widen geographically.

On one occasion I was sent to the Highlands to inspect the forestry situation there and to advise native affairs people who were attempting some tree planting. I was unlucky to arrive just as the District Commissioner was seething with anger at having a golf tournament, which he organised spoilt for him by arrival of higher officials from Canberra. He did not appreciate the honest opinion I gave him about some grassland reforestation trials I had seen and ordered me out of his office. Seeing he was twice my weight and many times my official ranking, I had to comply, but I completed the inspection of the Highlands with help of an agricultural officer. At the end of the period, I had to report to the District Commissioner again, but this time my reception was much more positive, as he could see that I understood the human side of the problem as well as the tree side. I stressed the importance of protecting and caring for the planted trees. Hopefully, it contributed to subsequent revegetation of the grasslands in the Highland valleys.

A rather different task arose when the seed production of hoop pine round Bulolo and other better stocks failed. A remote stand at Okapa in the Highlands seemed to be an exception, so I was sent to collect seed there. Okapa was a village and a patrol post on the edge of controlled territory. It was occupied by the Forei tribe, known primarily for the occurrence among them of the Kuru of laughing disease, which caused the progressive destruction of the brain and strange contortions of the face. I packed some collecting gear and sleeping gear for myself and the four Buka climbers and bags for the seed. We flew to Kainantu and then went by a jeep on a very rough road to Okapa. The first night in the village, the Bukas insisted on sleeping in the haus kiap (patrol officer’s house) with me, though it was no different from the haus polis allocated to them. The reason being that they were afraid of the Foreis, whom they believed to be cannibals. The problem was eventually solved by the kiap, who had a new patrol post a few miles up the mountain. He sent his police sergeant, who was a Buka and was suspected of being the source of the information about cannibalism to stay with Bukas when I had to returned to Bulolo. My departure coincided with arrival of the medical research team, and I had a dinner with them in the kiap’s one-bedroom house and office. We sat around a table at the centre of which were jars with pickled human brains and the discussion was about the timing of the removal of brains from the victims of the kuru disease. I struggled to eat much. The seed collection was a success and the Bukas the heroes of it. A decade later it was discovered that the Foreis did eat the corpses of the deceased, and transmitted the disease, like the mad cow disease in Britain. In that way it might have been discovered earlier, if we, especially the medicos, believed the Buka sergeant. Again, my training did not prepare me for something like this.

I also took part in the UNESCO symposium on the impact of man on the vegetation of the humid tropics held in Goroka. I presented two papers based on my research work in Bulolo, one on vegetational succession in plantation and its control and the other on problems of tree establishment in tropical grasslands, which were published in the proceedings.

Not all my second term was equally exciting. I combined the supervision of work in the plantations with research into the early stages of klinkii silviculture and made good progress. It was during this term that the Director Jim McAdam died of a heart attack. His replacement

was Bill Suttie, who was a Queenslander of similar vintage to McAdam, but of different management style.

He had a strong belief in the “in vino veritas” (there is truth in the vine) Roman style of management, that is that when drunk, people say things they would not say when sober. As a non-drinker I had nothing to fear from it, as I was still sober at the end of the parties when he was not, but I used to be quizzed by him the next morning as to what he had said. Towards the end of the term, Mr Suttie informed me that I would be sent for a limited period to Rabaul as acting Regional Officer for the Islands Region, to replace the officer poached by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. I had never worked in a lowland rainforest and had no experience in the control of log harvesting, which was the main part of the job in Rabaul, but that was considered only a minor problem, and in any case, there was no one else to send.

So, we arrived in Rabaul with all our possessions packed in a few cases and were met at the airport by the outgoing officer, who handed me the keys to the house and informed me that the clerk at the office would hand me over the other keys. Fortunately, the clerk was well informed and cooperative, as were the other officers of the region. The job was not without its problems. The royalties were behind the due date on several leases, and some of the leaseholders attempted bribery through Christmas presents for my family, which I forbad my wife to accept. I brought the worst offender to order by refusing to give his log shipment a quarantine certificate. As I was the only one authorised to issue the certificate, he paid up, though he subsequently complained to the Director about my misuse of authority. The Director complemented me on it.

The outstanding thing about the job was the travel involved. The leases were generally accessible only by small trading boats that carried copra (dried coconut) and salted crocodile skins and travelled at slow speeds which gave me plenty of time to fish for tuna and barracuda. One of these boats was Noosa, which dated back to before WW1. I travelled on it along the north coast of New Britain and we encountered a bad storm. After I finally got off at Cape Hoskins, where there was an airstrip, The Noosa scraped a coral reef, and it was hauled up for inspection of damage. It was condemned as unfit because the timbers below the copper plate were rotten. Another one, a better-quality ship that I used to get a timber assessment on Bougainville Island sunk a couple of years later in a storm because it was poorly balanced and possibly overloaded.

The accommodation was likewise quite varied. On one occasion I dined on pork and sauerkraut at a Roman Catholic mission’s Ulamona sawmill at the foot of the Father Volcano whilst solving the mysteries of negative log volumes caused by the high degree of utilisation of hollow kamarere logs.

The net volume was arrived at by deducting the squared volume of the hollow from the round volume of the log so that if the hollow was big enough, the net volume was negative. We agreed to ignore such logs. Because I would not share the German monks’ homebrew beer brew, I was suspected of being an Irishman, which did not match up with Irishmen’s reputation in Australia.

On another occasion, after having inspected a lease on Bairiman River, on the south coast of New Britain I slept in a house kiap built on the banks of the river. It had extremely high posts and difficult access via a precarious ladder. I was woken up at dawn by a yelp under the house and a big splash in the river. I later found out from the lululai (village headman) that a man had come to get water from the river and ran into a crocodile that was coming to feast on

village pigs. They both turned back to where they came from. The evening before I had cooked my meal right on the banks of the river where the croc came out of the water. Until then, I believed that crocs did not like running rivers with clear water. The high house posts and steep ladders made a lot more sense in the morning.

The most consequential trip, in terms of long-term effects, was to inspect exploratory assessment of forests on Toneloi Harbour on the southern tip of Bougainville Island. The area was reputed to have good stands of calophyllum. It was a strange combination of steep stony ridges and swampy inlets with mangroves. My boots got shredded on the ridges and the soles sucked off the tops in the swamps, so that I finessed walking barefoot. I stood on a thorn and in a quick reaction to it, fell downslope, hurting my back. I was able to walk to the airstrip in my second pair of shoes and to fly back to Rabaul, but after a day in the office I was unable to straighten up and stayed like that for over a month. The injury still bothers me today, though I largely keep it under control by daily exercisers and occasional visits to the physiotherapist.

During my stay in Rabaul, I completed the analysis of my research into early stages of klinkii pine plantation establishment and wrote it up towards the degree of Master of Science in Forestry with the University of Queensland. I was successful in getting the degree and later published a brief version of it in an international journal.

The physical stresses were not the key problems of the job. There was a huge demand for leases, especially those with good access. On one occasion received a verbal instruction to issue a lease to the leading businessman in Rabaul, who was also a member of the advisory council assisting the territory administrator. He already had leases, and I understood it to be a departmental policy to judge the granting of the lease on previous performance. I asked my utilisation ranger to check on the old lease, and he reported back that the contractor had logged all the timber that could be snigged by tractor and built no roads. There was significant timber residual, but probably too costly to haul. Having been taught self-defence by Dave Dunn, the Deputy Director, I wrote to the Director pointing out the problem and advising him that I could only proceed if directed. Next, I had a rare visit from the Chief of Utilisation, but no written direction. I offered to resign if my management was unsatisfactory, but the matter was dropped, at least for the rest of my short stay in Rabaul.

Another stress source was a major lease proposed for the Cape Hoskins area. Because of its size and international potential, it was largely dealt with by the Head Office, but I did inspect the area briefly with the assessment crew. I mentioned to the Director my experience with hollow logs utilised by the Ulamona sawmill, because like that area, the kamarere stands at Cape Hoskins were also on volcanic ashes and likely to have the same problems. The director replied that he worked in the area during the war and did not share my fears. The Deputy Director did share those fears and when he took over the project during the Director’s long service leave, he sent a utilisation crew that felled a lot of the kamarere trees and found them hollow. The project was downgraded.

However, by then I was no longer in Rabaul or even in the Territory. By that time, I completed my 18-month term in Rabaul, and a more senior officer was appointed to the position from overseas. Independence was becoming a major issue and the Director invited me to become involved in developing a forestry college at Bulolo to train local staff. Not having had any educational training, I negotiated a year at the University of Western Australia studying for a Diploma of Education and inspection of forestry training in New

Zealand and Fiji. To get that, I had to sign up for another five years of service in New Guinea.

When I returned to the Territory in 1962, I was involved in the preparation of the establishment of the forestry college, but also had a broader involvement for the preparation for independence. The main thing I remember about accompanying a group of Canberra officials dealing with the education issue was their concern that we in the Territory may have some privileges or entitlements that they did not have in Canberra. I also began developing teaching material for the college and identified an illustrated botanical textbook as one of the key needs. To help me in that I acquired Aubeta Kairo as an assistant. He was expelled from high school for insubordination but was an excellent field botanist who provided me with botanical specimens I needed for the textbook and for the school herbarium. I used cooperation with assessment and utilization crews as means of getting into areas that I did not know such as Milne Bay and Western Papua districts.

The first training that I carried out was the upgrading of local timber assessment crews in identification of trees and taking measurements in assessment surveys, which was done in Pidgin English. The second, more substantial training was the last intake of forest rangers from Australia, whose training was much more substantial. The classroom was my office in Bulolo. I developed teaching material as I went, often giving lectures which, I prepared the evening before. This course was the basis of the next step. Two of the rangers were subsequently assigned to me to help in the subjects in which they excelled, namely Arthur Ramsay (Blue) in survey and assessment and Heiner Streimann in botany. I was also assigned a Scottish forester Bill Finlayson, with experience in East Africa as my deputy.

The recruitment of trainees for the first indigenous rangers course proved challenging. Firstly, the forestry profession was not rated highly by the high schools and the Education Department. I recollect a remark at the bottom of a school certificate: “not suitable for law or medicine – try agriculture or forestry.” There was a similar attitude among the potential students that I interviewed at schools and at regional agricultural shows – they did not go to schools to work in the bush, their preference was a clean office job. Ultimately, I did scrape a training group of nine students for the first year. The school that I was co-designing with architects was still only on the paper, so the classroom and dormitory was extremely basic. However, we, i.e., all the teachers put in a solid effort and endeavoured to give the trainees not just theory, but also practice, in school excursions they experienced every vegetation type from the to the top of Mt Wilhelm, quite literally. I taught them technical English so that they could read scientific and technical subjects.

It was at this point that I ran into a major personal problem. My older son developed a hip problem. The doctor at Bulolo, whose idea of medicine was shaped by a spell in the German Army during WW2, thought he was malingering. When I had to do another recruiting drive at Lae High school, my wife came along with our son for a second medical check. The doctor at Lae, who had just completed postgraduate studies of bone diseases in USA, identified Perthe’s disease and put our son straight into hospital. He recommended that we arrange a speedy transfer to Australia for prolonged treatment, which we did with help of our missionary connections in Port Moresby and Sydney. My wife followed as soon as we packed our gear, but I had to stay to complete the school year. I then took my leave and applied for transfer to Port Moresby, the only place where my son’s illness could be treated,

In Australia, our family lived in a small house on the property we bought near Perth, and I kept requesting the transfer to Port Moresby. What I got instead was a list of obstacles to my

transfer – accommodation shortage, no position and transfer costs being the main ones. I used up my ordinary leave and was well through my long service when I had a letter from my deputy in Bulolo. The key item was the report that at a social evening in Bulolo the Director made a statement that “he could not see why Havel could not send his son for treatment from Bulolo to Port Moresby whenever it was needed.” Our son was at the time in plaster from his hips down, his legs being held wide apart to minimise permanent deformation. The strategy of “in vino veritas”: - “there is truth in the vine” was at work again. This time I was not just a bemused observer, but an incredibly angry father. It was plain that the strategy was to let me use up my leave entitlements and be forced to come back to Bulolo.

The next day I went to see the management of the Forests Department in Western Australia. Some of the top officers knew me both as a labourer on a gang and as a university student but gave me a temporary research position in the same location where I already had a house. The same day I sent a telegram to Port Moresby resigning from my position and requesting that our gear be sent to us in Western Australia. I got a reply that the obstacles to my transfer to Port Moresby had been overcome. I merely confirmed my decision to resign.

That was the end of my official career in the Territory. I continued to publish my work on sub professional training in Australasia, on the teaching of tropical botany and on the ecology of PNG forests, especially those with Araucaria emergents.

Nearly a decade later, I had a surprising request, namely, to co-operate with the Division of Botany in revising and publishing my manual of forest botany, which had been left untouched on the shelf. It resulted in a well utilised book, still used today, because it is based on sound educational theory and abundant illustrations, rather than the usual taxonomic jargon.

My next contact was a visit to PNG for the first conference of the Association of Foresters of PNG in 1996, organised by Dick McCarthy and Gabriel Samol. I was given a highland chief’s cap and a stone axe in recognition of my work in PNG and revisited some of the places where I once worked. I visited the Forestry College and for the first time saw the buildings I helped to design but never taught in. I met only one of my students and learned that another had already died. I also met my botanical assistant Aubeta Kairo and expressed my gratitude for his past help. I was saddened by the run-down appearance of the Bulolo plantations. I was shocked by the extensive clearing and lack of environmental considerations in the logging of the Cape Hoskins area. By contrast I was impressed by the success of reforestation of the Highlands. I even met a Forei from Okapa, now high in the administration of Goroka.

My final effort was to publish in 2009, a summary of forty years of study of Araucarias held in New Zealand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Havel JJ 1960. Factors influencing the establishment of ligneous vegetation in mid-mountain pyro- and anthropogenic grassland.” UNESCO Symposium on the impact of Man on Humid Tropic Vegetation Goroka, pp 370-12

Havel JJ 1960. Deflections of secondary succession of cleared mid-mountain rainforest sites by plantation tendings. UNESCO Symposium on the impact of Man on Humid Tropic Vegetation Goroka. Pp 339-43

Havel JJ 1964 Sub-professional forestry education in Australasia. Aust For. 28 (4): pp 28793

Havel JJ 1965 Teaching tropical forest botany. Unasylva 19 (4): pp 179-83

Havel JJ 1965. Plantation establishment of klinkii pine (Araucaria hunsteinii) in New Guinea. Common Forestry Review 44 (3): pp 172-87

Havel JJ 1971 The Araucaria forests of New Guinea and their regenerative capacity. Ecol. 59: pp 203-14

Havel JJ 1975 Training Manual for the Forestry College. Vol 3 Forest Botany. Papua New Guinea Department of Forests 317 pp.

Havel JJ 1972 New Guinea Forests – structure, composition, and management. Aust For. 36: pp 24-37

Havel JJ 2009 Araucariaceae, Angiosperms and People. Proceedings of 2002 Araucariaceae Symposium, International Dendrology Society NZ 2002, pp 107-132

Leonard John Brass (1900 – 1971) was an Australian and American botanist, botanical

collector, and explorer. He was born in Toowoomba Queensland. He trained at the Queensland herbarium. Brass collected plant specimens for the Queensland Herbarium form the 1930’s to the 1960’s, as well as participating in several international expeditions to New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Africa. From 1939 to 1966 Brass was an Associate Curator of the Archbold Expedition Collections with the American Museum of Natural History. He was especially interested in the relationship between the floras of Australia and New Guinea. Brass retired from the American Museum of Natural History in 1966 and returned to Australia where he died in Cairns in 1971.

Expeditions Brass participated in include:

New Guinea (1925-1926) for the Arnold Arboretum. Solomon Islands (1932-1933) for the Arnold Arboretum. New Guinea (1933-1934), first Archbold New Guinea Expedition, plants going to the Arnold Arboretum. New Guinea (1936-1937), second Archbold New Guinea Expedition, plants going to the Arnold Arboretum. New Guinea (1938-1939), third Archbold New Guinea Expedition, plants going to the Arnold Arboretum. Nyasaland (1946), Vernay Nyasaland Expedition, plants going to the New York Botanical Gardens. Cape York Peninsula, Australia (1948), Archbold Cape York Expedition, plants going to the Arnold Arboretum. Tropical Africa (1949-1950), Upjohn-Penick Expedition. New Guinea (1953), fourth Archbold New Guinea Expedition, plants going to the Arnold Arboretum. New Guinea (1956-1957), fifth Archbold New Guinea Expedition, plants going to the Rijksherbarium Leiden, Netherlands. New Guinea (1959), sixth Archbold New Guinea Expedition, plants going to the US National Herbarium at Washington, United States.

ACRONYMS

ACT AEC ACIAR AFS AFPNG AIF AMF ANBG ANGAU ANU APMF APPM ASOPA BCOF “Beer Time” BFC BGD BUC C cm CALM

CFA CNGT CRE CRE

CSIRO CHAH DEPT FAO F &TB FPRC Forkol ha IBRD IFA L of N m3 MM NAA NARI NB no. Australian Capital Territory Administrators Executive Committee Australian Centre for Agriculture Research Australian Forestry School Association of Foresters of PNG Australian Infantry Forces Australian Military Forces Australian National Botanical Gardens Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit Australian National University Australian Paper Manufacturers Forestry Pty Ltd Australia Paper and Pulp Manufacturers Australian School of Pacific Administration British Commonwealth Occupational Force 1945-52 Any time. Bulolo Forestry College Bulolo Gold Dredging Company Bulolo University College Commonwealth Centimetre Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management Commonwealth Forestry Association Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers Bulolo Corps of Royal Engineers CRE is a term inherited by RAE from RE and is the term for the Commanding Officer of a RAE unit which is headed by a Lt Col. Although the officer is called the CRE the name is also used for the name of his unit. E.g., CRE Aust Forestry Group or 1(NG Forests). Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria Department Food and Agriculture Organisation Forest and Timber Bureau Canberra Forest Products Research Centre Hohola Bulolo Forestry College Hectare International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Institute of Foresters of Australia League of Nations cubic metre Military Medal National Archives Australia National Agriculture Research Institute New Britain Number

NG NGF NGIB NZ NSW PIB PIR PNG PNGAA PNGAF PNGFA PNGFIA PNGUT POM Q QF RAE RPC SP UK UN UNE UNI UNITECH UNRE UPNG UQ US USA TPNG TUBL TA TA TRP VSF WA WB WW2 New Guinea New Guinea Forces (relates to plant collection of Lae Herbarium) New Guinea Infantry Battalion New Zealand New South Wales Papuan Infantry Battalion Pacific Islands Regiment Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea Australia Association Papua New Guinea Australian Foresters Magazine Series Papua New Guinea Forest Authority PNG Forest Industries Association PNG University of Technology Port Moresby Queensland Queensland Forestry Royal Australian Engineers/Australian Army Royal Papuan Constabulary South Pacific United Kingdom United Nations University of New England Armidale NSW University University of Technology Lae PNG University of Natural Resources and Environment University of Papua New Guinea University of Queensland United States United States of America Territory of Papua and New Guinea Territory United Brewery Ltd Timber Area Timber Authority Timber Rights Purchase Victorian School of Forestry Western Australia World Bank WORLD WAR 2