Endangered and Endemic Flora of Macquarie Island 

In late 2020 I applied for an Antarctic Arts fellowship to record and highlight the endangered and endemic flora of Macquarie Island through botanical illustration.  

Although not successful in winning the Arts Fellowship I have been granted a special project status supported by the Director of the Antarctic Division to travel to Macquarie Island in the summer 21/22 (subject to transport logistics). My application was also supported by the Director of the Royal Tasmanian Botanic Garden (RTBG) and the Curator of the Subantarctic collection at the Garden.

Since November 2020, I have been privileged to access the RTBG’s backup conservation collection of Subantarctic plants, supervised by  the curator, Lorraine Perrins. I have been familiarising myself with the collection by making initial drawing studies of Macquarie Island plants which have been propagated in the backup collection. I have been able to study a variety of plants from the larger plants, such as Carex triffida and Poa foliosa through to plants which have parts which can only be seen under a microscopes including Uncinia divirtica, Luzula crinita and Epilobium pendunculare.  

Most exciting of all has been to study and document the two tiny and endangered endemic orchids, Corybas sulcatus and Corybas dienemus, from Macquarie Island which have been successfully propagated at the Garden. The two monographs (black and white illustrations) I produced were entered into the Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in Botanical Illustration. The Corybas dienemus or Windswept Helmet Orchid illustration was chosen to be hung in the exhibition at the Calyx gallery at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney