Ecology of Indonesian Papua Part One. Andrew J. Marshall
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saved. New facilities were constructed during 1983–1984 as part of a complex known as the Natural Science Resource Centre. A principal aim was (and is) the study and documentation of the distinctive seasonal flora of the Port Moresby region (including the already-mentioned offshore island of Motupore), but research into other areas was also carried out including mangroves (including a manual), seagrasses, ant-plants (Rubiaceae), and freshwater aquatic macrophytes (again with publication, in 1985, of a manual by Leach and Osborne). After Frodin’s departure, H. Fortune Hopkins was (through 1990) lecturer-in-charge, continuing among other activities work on the Motupore florula, published jointly with Menzies (see below) in the mid-1990s. In the latter part of that decade (following completion of his PhD), O. Gideon took up this post, transferring from Lae. Technical staff—most of whom also collected—have included A. Gebo, K. Naoni, A. Vinas, M. Kuduk, and P. Piskaut, and many students similarly contributed. Undergraduate courses in plant diversity continue to be taught.
A herbarium was also set up at the University of Technology (PNGUT) by R. Johns after his accession to the professorship of forestry, the full degree course of which was taught there from 1980. This served as a depository for vouchers from forestry plots and vegetation studies as well as a teaching resource. Subsequently it came under P. Siaguru.
Outside Expeditions
In the three decades after World War II, numerous externally-funded botanical expeditions were conducted. With most was associated, as already indicated, the Division of Botany, where original or duplicate sets of their collections have been deposited (though in a few cases these are also, or only, at UPNG). The largest undertakings incorporating botanical work were the four later Archbold Expeditions (1953–1964), on which Brass was botanist for the first three and Hoogland for the last, and the several CSIRO land surveys (mostly 1953–1969; for both, see section on Integrated Expeditions, above) but there were many others, principally from Europe. Some comprised a single individual who might make Lae a base and run field trips from there over several months to a few years.
Of particular interest for some of the external expeditions were, not unnaturally, the high mountains; and in general the montane flora with its distinct Gondwanan affinities was attractive (and now more accessible). In 1956 Hoogland and Pullen worked on Mt Wilhelm (first named, as already indicated, by Zöller in 1888, but only later ascertained as the highest in eastern New Guinea), where they were joined by Womersley and Galore (LAE). Their collections were the first of any real extent to be made on this peak (in 1970 the subject of a florula, and where for a time ANU maintained a field station). In 1957 R. C. Robbins worked on vegetation on Mts Wilhelm, Hagen, and Giluwe, and, also in 1957, J. C. Saunders was in the Kubor Mts. Several mountains in the Eastern Highlands and Simbu were visited by Brass in 1959 with the Sixth Archbold Expedition, while in 1964 Hoogland climbed high into the Saruwageds with the Seventh Archbold Expedition. In 1960 Hoogland, Schodde, and Robbins worked on Mt Sugarloaf (west of Mt Hagen); in 1961 Hoogland and Darbyshire worked in the Torricelli Mts, and in 1966 Hoog-land and Craven spent some time in the Hunstein (also known as Sumset) Range—making the first plant collections there since Ledermann.
By the 1980s such expeditions, along with those of locally-employed scientists, had covered most parts of the country; but such was the terrain as well as issues of access that many gaps still remained; also, the unusual flora present over some substrates was only gradually recognized for what it was. Moreover, a number of areas worked by German collectors before 1914 had never been revisited. In the last two decades, there has been some gap-filling—particularly under outside sponsorship and often as part of more general bioinventories.
A byproduct of the CSIRO botanical work was an extensive card file (maintained through 1968) of taxa in the New Guinea flora with literature references compiled by Hoogland (CSIRO, Canberra; two copies exist in book form—one in FRI, Lae). It has, however, yet to be included in a database or even digitally imaged in the way that the large Hu card index for China at Harvard has been. But for the most part the very substantial botanical collections were not worked up into separate reports but simply have joined the general stock drawn upon for Flora Malesiana, its precursors, and individual revisions. Very many remain to be documented, with some of them as-yet-undescribed novelties. A large proportion of the distributed collections has been entered into databases, but as part of other projects.
Other Collectors
C. R. Stonor, in the course of his ornithological work, in 1948–1949 collected plants on Mt Hagen and Mt Wilhelm (Edinburgh). In 1954 H. S. McKee collected in the Wahgi Valley (Brisbane, Lae). In 1955, in continuation of his long expedition in western New Guinea, P. van Royen collected at Bulolo, the Bulldog Track south of Wau, Lae, and near Port Moresby (Leiden). From 1958 (continuing until 1979) Dr D. Carleton Gajdusek (National Institutes of Health, United States) collected plant and animal material as vouchers for food and drugs in the Eastern Highlands and many other areas while studying the spongiform encephalopathic disease, Kuru (related to "mad cow," or BSE, and nvCJD), and related topics, for which he became a Nobel Laureate. In 1960 J. A. R. Anderson collected 22 numbers on Mt Wilhelm (Edinburgh) and in the same year F. R. Fosberg collected in the vicinity of Goroka, Lae, and Rabaul (USNM).
The relative trickle of the 1950s now turned into a flood, and substantial collections in all groups were made. In the first half of the 1960s P. van Royen (while on the LAE staff) collected with H. O. Sleumer on Mt Wilhelm and in New Britain (Sleumer particularly interested in Rhododendron), on Mt Wilhelm with the plant physiologist F. W. Went (then director of the Missouri Botanical Garden), and on the Huon Peninsula with S. Carlquist (RSA). The 1962 Noona Dan expedition (see section on Integrated Expeditions, above) made a considerable plant collection in the Bismarcks. In 1963, W. Vink (Leiden) and Pullen (CSIRO) collected on the Kubor Range, while Carlquist collected with Henty (LAE) at Mt Piora. F. Kleckham of DASF collected plants on Mt Strong; G. Rosenberg collected plants and insects on Mt Amungwiwa; and R. Heim collected fungi in the Central Highlands (Paris). In 1964–1965 A. Clive Jermy (BMNH) led a BMNH/University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne expedition, initially working in the Finisterres—not visited since before 1914—and then in parts of the Highlands including Okapa, Mt Elandora (Krätke Range), and Mt Wilhelm as well as in the Herzog Ranges south of Lae. He was accompanied by T. G. Walker (who later collected in New Britain), A. Eddy, P. W. James, and M. E. Bacchus; for the Finisterres they were joined by Sayers (LAE) and Pullen (CSIRO). In the first serious undertaking of its kind, pteridophytes and non-vascular cryptogams were emphasized; but some 1,000 numbers of phanerogams were also obtained.
During 1962–1965 T. G. Hartley—connected to CSIRO but not part of the land survey program—was engaged in systematic sampling for alkaloids and other medicinal properties (an extension of similar work on the Australian flora); several localities, mainly in Morobe and Eastern Highlands, were visited (plants, CSIRO, Canberra). His final report, A Survey of New Guinea Plants for Alkaloids, appeared in 1973 (Lloydia 38: 217–319), covering, in taxonomic sequence, all his collections. (Later he joined the organization as a taxonomist in the present Australian National Herbarium and remains active in Malesian and Australasian taxonomic research.)
The opening of the new herbarium for LAE in early 1965 facilitated the work of outside visitors as well as the staff. In that year Gillison, van Royen, and Buderus (LAE) worked on Mt Biota, west of Mt Albert Edward, and B. Craig (later with the National Museum in Port Moresby) in the Star Mts. Later M. J. van Balgooy visited the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG), notably working on Mt Wilhelm (Leiden, his collections particularly fine). His trip was the first of a number organized from Leiden in pursuit of the notable high-mountain and alpine flora (eventually a major basis for van Royen’s Alpine Flora of New Guinea). Balgooy was followed in 1966 by C. Kalkman and W. Vink. With Gillison and Frodin (LAE) as local counterparts, they spent some three months in the Doma Peaks, followed by a short visit to the Telefomin area including part of the Hindenburg Range (Leiden, Lae). In August 1968, on a privately financed expedition, P. Woods (Edinburgh) and M. Black with Ridsdale (LAE) collected towards Murray Pass and on Mt Albert Edward, with Woods and Black specializing in orchids (Leiden; Lae). In 1969–1970 M. J. S. Sands (Kew) with Coode (LAE) worked on New Ireland, obtaining the first significant collections from its southern mountains (Kew, Lae).
The strong pace carried on well into the 1970s, the last decade of relatively liberal public funding for fieldwork. In 1970–1971 Y. Kobayashi