New plants identified in Western Australia's Kimberley

Andrea Hayward WA Today 20 Oct 09;

Western Australia's Kimberley region is an untapped gold mine of plant species, with more than 80 new plants identified in the region, botanists say.

Kings Park botanists and brothers Matt and Russell Barrett have lodged a collection of 104 new species from the region at the WA herbarium.

Using helicopters to access remote locations, the pair identified 88 previously unknown species and 16 found for the first time in WA.

Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) herbarium curator Dr Kevin Thiele said the collection was important to development considerations in the region.

"It's tremendously exciting and it's also tremendously important because the Kimberley is an area ... where there are big plans," Dr Thiele told AAP.

"In order to sustainably develop we absolutely need to know what plants and animals are there.

"What we know from this exercise and analysis we know the Kimberley is probably one of the least explored regions in Australia."

Some of the plants were relatively small and obscure but others spectacular, including a new hibiscus species, with large, bright yellow flowers which grows to more than two metres.

"This species has only recently been discovered because it only grows in a very small area in a special habitat," Dr Thiele said.

A type of bladderwort, a small carnivorous plant that catches water creatures in special underwater traps is among the new species.

"It grows and flowers in the wet season and has been found in just one creek in a remote area," Dr Thiele said.

New species were regularly discovered across WA but Dr Thiele said it was rare to add such a large number at once to the herbarium.

Dr Matt Barrett said the work had been done over 15 years but formalised in four months.

Dr Barrett said the brothers' interest in botany began as youngsters while growing up on a Kimberley cattle station.

"Weekends we'd go out and have a look at areas that probably no white person had ever set foot on before," he said.



"It wasn't very long before we started finding new species. We just kept going on from there."

Dr Barrett said many thought of the region as a dry desert but in the wet season the area, typified by rugged sandstone, eucalyptus and rainforest in patches, was also home to waterfalls.

It was important to understand what is there, he said.

Dr Barret said his team knew of areas in which between five and seven species were known only from that site, making the region special.

"And some of those are effectively being surveyed for mining so if we mine that whole area without actually understanding what's there, those species could completely slip under the radar because we don't know about them."

Dr Thiele said the Kimberley was an "untapped gold mine" of new species.

"The bigger picture of this is this just shows how many species are there that have never been seen before, have never been sighted, described or named," he said.

"You couldn't do an exercise like this probably anywhere in Australia like the Kimberley."