> Research & Conservation > Plant Research > Horticultural Research

Horticultural Research

Research projects

Banksia Land and Biodiversity Award Winner
Micropropagation of Australian plants
Conservation of native orchids
Conservation in horticulture
Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia

Banksia Land and Biodiversity Award Winner

Back from the Brink: Saving Victoria’s Threatened Orchids
Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria

In partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Australasian Native Orchid Society Victorian Group, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Zoo, University of Melbourne, Victoria University and RMIT.

The Victorian threatened orchid recovery project aimed to restore one of the world’s great temperate terrestrial orchid floras of which over one-half of the 380 are threatened. The project covered 80 species of highly threatened orchids, has protected over 150 populations of 50 threatened orchid species, and has saved four critically endangered orchids from extinction.

The project is a partnership of the Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Australasian Native Orchid Society Victorian group, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Zoo, University of Melbourne, Victoria University and RMIT University, backed by a network of over 40 agencies and community groups across Victoria, interstate and overseas.

“Saving Victoria’s Threatened Orchids” project is unique in Australia by virtue of the numbers of orchids under protection and organisations contributing to their conservation. The success to date provides a solid foundation to continue the work to achieve protection for all of Victoria’s wild orchids. more information about the Banksia Awards

Micropropagating Australian plants

Doryanthes excelsa

Doryanthes excelsa is an increasingly important cutflower that is currently still harvested from natural bush areas. Establishing plantations will have an important conservation outcome by reducing the bush-picking of flowers. Determining appropriate micropropagation methods will allow for rapid plantation establishment, and potentially earlier flowering than can be achieved through seed propagated material. As well as developing micropropagation protocols, this collaborative project between the Gardens and the University of Melbourne (Faculty of Land and Food Resources), is also using molecular techniques to assess the genetic variability of natural populations of D. excelsa.

Doryanthes excelsa Doryanthes excelsa flower

Conserving native orchids

Eighteen percent of Australia’ s orchid species are epiphytes or lithophytes, growing on other plants or in crevices of rocky outcrops. Epiphytic orchids grow mostly in the forests along the eastern coast. The remaining eighty-two percent of orchids are terrestrial and found predominantly in Australia's southeast and southwest.

Victoria is in the centre of one of these orchid "hotspots" with twenty-three percent of Australia’s orchid species in just three percent of the land area, and about forty percent of these species found only within Victoria.

The endangered, vulnerable or rare status of many Australian native orchids has been of increasing concern to conservation organisations, and without intervention, the great diversity of Australian terrestrial species may be lost. Over the past decade or so, the Royal Botanic Gardens has been a part of a network that is helping in a number of ways to improve the conservation status of our orchids. This collaboration between the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Parks Victoria, the Australasian Native Orchid Society, the Melbourne Zoo, The University of Melbourne, RMIT University and Victoria University has been recently recognised with the project being a finalist in the 2006 Banksia Awards.

Ex situ conservation

The ex situ (away from the natural habitat) orchid conservation work at the Royal Botanic Gardens has been and remains strongly linked to federally funded and state managed Recovery Plans. The focus has been on Victorian taxa.

Research at the Royal Botanic Gardens has lead to improved propagation methods for terrestrial orchids, through the use of better techniques and media, and a greater understanding of the associated mycorrhizal fungi. Sowing seed is the preferred method of propagation for conservation purposes, as genetic diversity of orchid populations can be maintained, and germination proceeds in the presence of associated mycorrhizal fungi. Plants produced are then available as backup ex situ collections, as seed "orchards" for direct sowing or for translocating plants back into natural populations.

Networking for orchid conservation

The orchid conservation work of the Royal Botanic Gardens links in with other organisations. It is closely associated with the Department of Sustainability and Environment, RMIT University, the University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Zoo, the Australasian Native Orchid Society and a number of other organisations both in Victoria and interstate. These linkages have been evolving, and are both informal and formal. They help to keep the momentum in orchid conservation going, and optimise the use of resources that are available for orchid conservation, including research. Networking is facilitated through

Victorian Threatened Orchid Recovery Team (TORT) and its related committees. TORT was set up as an advisory body with a range of expertise related to orchid conservation. The TORT Cultivation Committee has produced a number of documents.

Victorian Threatened Orchid Recovery Team (2003) General Guidelines for nurseries growing terrestrial orchids for conservation use. Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.

Victorian Threatened Orchid Recovery Team (2003) Ex situ cultivation Guidelines for the Sunshine Diuris, Diuris fragrantissima. Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Melbourne.

Victorian Threatened Orchid Recovery Team (2003) Ex situ cultivation Guidelines for the Small Golden Moths, Diuris sp. aff. chryseopsis. Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Melbourne.

Victorian Threatened Orchid Recovery Team (2003) Cultivation techniques for the Conservation of Temperate Australian Terrestrial Orchids. Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Melbourne.

Orchid Researchers Meetings are regularly hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens, and bring together orchid conservation researchers for exchange of information and ideas about their current research.

Australian Network for Orchid Conservation (ANOC). ANOC is an email mailing list hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens for the exchange of information related to orchid conservation in Australia. To subscribe to ANOC, visit the website http://lists.rbg.vic.gov.au/mailman/listinfo/anoc and follow the directions under "Subscribing to ANOC". ANOC has links with the Orchid Specialist Group of the IUCN, which is based in the United Kingdom.

Co-operative orchid conservation (COC). COC is a website hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens, that introduces people who are interested, to a range of orchid conservation projects, research, organisations and people.

Conferences. In 2000, the Gardens co-sponsored and hosted the Ex situ Orchid Conservation Forum. The second Forum, the Orchid Conservation Forum II, organised by TORT, was held at the Gardens in September 2003. It was a part of the 150^th celebrations for the National Herbarium of Victoria, and like the first Forum, it enabled us to assess our progress, identify gaps, plan effective research projects and guide threatened orchid management. In 2002, TORT organised another orchid symposium held at the Gardens, Mutual gains – co-operative orchid conservation in south-eastern Australia.

Caladenia rosella, an endangered orchid from northeast of Melbourne (Photo: Jeff Jeanes)	Caladenia formosa, an orchid from Victoria and South Australia listed as vulnerable (Photo: Jeff Jeanes)
Caladenia tensa seedlings growing in culture (Photo: Rob Cross)	A scanning electron micrograph of a Caladenia protocorm (Photo: Gayle Marven)

Conservation in horticulture

We are regularly reminded of human environmental impacts, with issues like climate change and water usage frequently discussed in the media. Horticulture, like all human activities, impacts on our natural environment. Gardens absorb a significant portion of our finite water resources. The application of garden chemicals as fertilisers and pesticides can lead to polluted waterways. Plants that are grown outside their normal range at times escape into natural environments where they compete successfully with indigenous plants. And there are many more pressures on our environment that horticulture contributes to.

The Royal Botanic Gardens is currently assessing horticultural products and practices - evaluating them for their environmental impact, determining criteria for their assessment, and identifying preferred methods so that those involved in horticulture professionally or recreationally may tread more lightly on the earth.

The Grey Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (Photo: Rob Cross)

Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia The Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia is a five-volume identification guide to the cultivated plants, both native and exotic, in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland. It is a reference work for students of horticulture, landscape architects and designers, nurserymen, botanists and anyone involved with cultivated plants. It is the first comprehensive account of its kind in Australia, providing extensive identification aids, including over 3000 diagnostic line drawings by Su Pearson, and taking advantage of the resources and expertise at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. Plant descriptions are in non-technical language and each is accompanied by a high quality line drawing and identification aids. Emphasis has been given to aspects of the cultivated Flora of the region that are of special Australian significance - our specialists and growers, major plant collections and our prominent parks and gardens. Detail provided includes: the range of available cultivars (with descriptions and details of their origin when known), specialists societies and their journals, the places and people that are holding outstanding collections, and the localities and brief history of our outstanding specimen trees.