Plant Research

Apart from maintaining our current collection of plants, we also spent a large amount of our time researching on new plants and trialing them at our nursery in NSW. It is very important to ensure that all plants we grow are correctly identified. Trading of misidentified plants through the horticultural industry could lead to the spread of potential weeds or further spread of unwanted plants sold under the wrong name. From time to time, we will post brief details of our research here on this page.

Case Study:
A good example is that few years ago, we have been given a plant labelled as "Villarsia calthifolia" (Mountain Villarsia) that has been circulating (under this name) in horticultural trade throughout the east coast of Australia. This incorrectly identifed plant did not match any features of the "Villarsia calthifolia" plant. The true Villarsia calthifolia is very distinct when compared to other species under the same genus as it has the largest leaf size. It's round green leaves is approximately 15cms in diameter with toothed margins. Flower stems could reach up to 75cms in height. However, the incorrectly identified plant has smaller leaves up to 5cms in size. The flower stems are also shorter than 50cms in height.

Reference:
"Aquatic Plants of Australia" by Helen Aston - published by Melbourne University Press (1973).
"Western Australia's Threatened Flora" - published by Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) (1998).

Below are some of the plants we have researched on:

Ludwigia adscendens - This is one of the more interesting species of the Ludwigia genus. This particular species have very distinctive pneumatophores, a breathing type of spongy roots arising at the nodes of the floating or creeping stems. A sun loving plant with pale creamy to almost white flowers that will probably make it unique within it's own genus. It is a plant native to remote areas of Australia, Papua New Guinea, India and other parts of Asia.

Mimulus ringens (Allegheny Monkey Flower) - The very popular monkey flower plant in England & Europe. Thought to have been lost in our collection a few years ago, it has recently made an appearance in an odd corner of a bog planting bed of "Ludwigia spp.".