New Zealand Fungal Herbarium (PDD)

Background• started about 1920 by G.H. Cunningham

• transferred to DSIR, Plant Diseases Division in 1936.

• in 1992 the herbarium and its associated research became part of Landcare Research.

Functions • to acquire, preserve and maintain the national collection of New Zealand fungi;

• to support associated systematic research;

• to provide a specialist information service for various organisations and government departments both within New Zealand and throughout the Pacific;

• to be a repository for fungi of ecological significance

• for verification of plant disease records for New Zealand and for island nations of the South Pacific; • to underpin quarantine and border control decisions.

Collection Size• over 70,000 accessioned specimens

• between 1,000 and 2,000 specimens added each year

Geographic Coverage• over 150 countries represented in the collection with the following major holdings: New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Australia, Canada, Germany, USA.

Specimen Protection• collection is housed in air-conditioned facilities

• fire protection by Inergen gas flooding system

• type specimens are held in locked, fire-retardant cabinets

• annual fumigation of entire collection

Database

• all collection data electronic

• collections holdings on WWW

Database includes:

• nomenclature of names

• host associations

• literature

• descriptions

• illustrations

http://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz

• will shortly link to plant names database

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International Collection of Micro-organisms from Plants (ICMP)

• living collection of bacterial and fungal cultures

• international collection of plant associated bacteria

• New Zealand’s main collection of fungal cultures

• over 11,000 strains of micro-organisms, including 6,500 strains of bacteria and 4,500 strains of fungi

• preservation methods:

– culture plugs vacuum-dried in glass ampoules

– culture plugs in glycerol solution within short plastic straws, frozen in liquid nitrogen

International Collection of Micro-organisms from Plants (ICMP)

• searchable database now on-line

http://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz/icmp/search_cultures.asp

International Collection of Micro-organisms (ICMP)

• searchable database now on-line

http://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz/icmp/search_cultures.asp