Australian Biological Resources Study
Issue 26
Australian Biological Resources Study, April 2002
ISSN 0814 B8880
For the first time ABRS is providing a special pull out brochure on ABRS products for sale. It is the centrefold section of this issue of Biologue which allows you to pull the brochure out. It contains information on all the latest ABRS publications and other products, including a summary of contents, availability and prices. Contact ABRS to obtain your copy of this brochure.
In 1801, at the age of twenty-nine, Robert Brown was chosen by Sir Joseph Banks as the botanist to accompany Matthew Flinders in the Investigator on the first circumnavigation of the Australian continent.
The voyage was to extend over 5 years, and Brown used his time well, assembling substantial collections of plants, animals and minerals. He kept a diary of his observations on the natural history, the appearance of the country, and the peoples they met. Brown returned to England with his scientific reputation established, becoming one of the leading botanists of his time.
This book provides the first complete transcript of his diary, a key Australian historical and scientific document. The transcription is supplemented with a detailed interpretation of Brown's notes, and supporting extracts from the journals of Flinders, Good, and other contemporaries.
The book is essential reading for botanists, zoologists, geologists, anthropologists, historians, and all those who just enjoy tales of adventure and discovery.
Allan Cunningham was one of Australia's foremost botanist explorers. During his 17 years in Australia, he was responsible for collecting more than 3000 specimens of plants and exploring much of eastern New South Wales and southern Queensland.
This book provides precise locality information for the numerous localities visited by Allan Cunningham between December 1817 and April 1822 when he was the botanist accompanying Phillip Parker King on his hydro-graphic surveys of the Australian coastline. The information will facilitate the curation of Cunningham's plant specimens, which are distributed among herbaria worldwide, and will assist those who wish to revisit his collecting localities.
Also provided is a synoptic, chronological listing of Cunningham's entire itinerary for the period of his stay in Australia (1816-1839).
Both of the above books were launched at the Investigator 200 Symposium in Albany, WA, on 10 December, by Prof. David Mabberley. This was a very nice conjunction of events. The conference was timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the first Australian landing of the Investigator expedition (of which Brown was botanist/naturalist) at King George Sound. Just 20 years later, Allan Cunningham also landed at King George Sound, as part of the Phillip Parker King voyages. King and Cunningham had been sent to complete the Investigator surveys, curtailed when the Investigator became unseaworthy. As King was the natural successor to Flinders in terms of mapping the coastline, so Cunningham was a worthy successor to Robert Brown as a major and influential botanist of the Australian flora. Thus the two books are complementary in many ways.
However, it should be noted that while the Brown book is a full transcription of his diary, the Cunningham book contains only locality information and maps. Publication of the full Cunningham diaries awaits another day. We were particularly fortunate that the biographer of Robert Brown, David Mabberley, agreed to launch the two books. His knowledge of Brown is unsurpassed, and his biography, Jupiter Botanicus, provides an important perspective on Brown, the man, and the context for his diaries.
The Albany conference was extremely well attended, and all there were treated to some extremely interesting papers on Australian botany, zoology and biological history. Copies of the Brown and Cunningham books were available for sale, and a generous supply was exhausted by lunchtime on the first day. The books continue to sell well and are being promoted at other bicentenary events around Australia during 2002. They are available by mail order from ABRS (see brochure in the centre of this issue of Biologue for more details).