The Plant Science and Herbarium Program undertakes activities to create and disseminate new knowledge on the diversity, distribution, evolution and ecology of the state’s flora, providing a scientific- and evidence-base for conservation policy, planning and management. 

The program includes the Western Australian Herbarium that houses the state collection of scientific specimens of plants, algae, cyanobacteria, lichens, slime moulds and fungi. The Herbarium is responsible for:  

• documenting and describing the diversity of Western Australia's flora  
• maintaining a collection of specimens providing the authoritative, permanent and physical record for the presence, distribution and names of flora in Western Australia 
• helping the community, industry and researchers understand and identify plants through provision of identification tools, an identification service, and a self-service Reference Herbarium 
• taxonomic research focussing on the formal naming and description of novel components of the Western Australian flora 
• providing authoritative information on flora names and distribution to government, industry and the community via the Florabase website and the Herbarium's information management systems 

The program includes the Western Australian Seed Centre (Kensington) which houses that state seed collection of conservation-significant species, insuring against extinction and loss of genetic diversity in the wild and providing material for seed-based flora recovery actions. 

Applied flora conservation research undertaken in the program seeks to understand the factors and processes that are critical for the conservation of Western Australia's native plant diversity. This includes: 

• Plant genomics at the Sid James Conservation Genetics Laboratory to support taxonomic work on particularly challenging groups, to identify conservation units, and to provide an evolutionary context for flora recovery actions 
• Understanding the impacts of threats and the effectiveness of threat mitigation approaches for key plant species and ecological communities 
• Development of practical approaches for flora recovery, including seed conservation and plant translocation 

Strong collaborative linkages exist with universities, cooperative research centres, national and international herbaria, CSIRO, the National Environmental Science Program, NRM groups, NGOs, other government agencies, traditional owners and the corporate sector.  

Our people 

Carl Gosper 
Plant Science and Herbarium Program Leader 

John Huisman 
Herbarium Curator

Rachel Binks 
Senior Research Scientist 

Terry Macfarlane
Senior Research Scientist

Kelly Shepherd
Senior Research Scientist

Juliet Wege
Senior Research Scientist

Ben Anderson
Research Scientist

Rebecca Dillon 
Research Scientist 

Andrew Crawford 
Research Scientist 

Leonie Monks 
Research Scientist 

Mel Millar 
Research Scientist 

Matt Chick 
Research Scientist

Nic Delnevo
Research Scientist

Carol Wilkins
Research Scientist 

Shelley James 
Herbarium Collections Manager

Steve Dillon
Senior Technical Officer

Cheryl Parker
Senior Technical Officer

Julia Percy-Bowers
Database Management Officer

Kate Lazar
Senior Technical Officer

Skye Coffey
Technical Officer

Amy Curtis
Techical Officer

Rob Davis
Identification Botanist

Simone Dudley
Technical Officer

Renee Gugiatti
Technical Officer

Michael Hislop
Identification Botanist

Anne Kelly
Technical Officer

Supreema Sinha
Technical Officer