Flora
Tasmania boasts a remarkable variety of landforms, climates and soils. As a consequence, its plant life is rich and diverse, ranging from the luxuriant lichens of its rainforests to the grasstrees and epacrids of its coastal heaths; from the distinctive eucalypts of its sclerophyll forests to the sedges and rare mosses of its buttongrass plains.
In all, Tasmania is home to nearly 1,900 native species of flowering plants, and an even greater number of lichens, bryophytes and other non-flowering plants. Of the former, 500 or so are unique to the island. The State is also home to numerous introduced and naturalised species of plants – over 800 at last count – many of which are weeds.
The Tasmanian Herbarium’s collection of 250,000 plant specimens is recognised as the largest and most comprehensive record of the Tasmanian flora in the world. Its local specimens have been gathered from around the State, and date from the first arrival of Europeans to the present day. The collection also includes numerous specimens of foreign and Australian mainland plants.
The Herbarium’s botanists are responsible for developing, maintaining and managing this collection, and for using it to research Tasmania’s plants. In doing so, they publish numerous books and papers, including A Census of the Vascular Plants of Tasmania. An indispensable aid to students, plant enthusiasts and professionals alike, the Census lists all the currently known vascular plants that are native to, or naturalised in, the State. It also serves as an index to the five volumes of the widely used Student’s Flora of Tasmania.