Otto Wilhelm Sonder
Otto Wilhelm Sonder was a German botanist and pharmacist, a native of Holstein. From 1841 to 1878 he was the proprietor of a pharmacy in Hamburg. In 1846 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Königsberg. Sonder kept a extensive botanical collection, containing hundreds of thousands of specimens. After it grew too large for him to manage on his own, he sold it to his friend Ferdinand von Mueller, who sold parts of it to the Swedish Museum of Natural History and to Jean Michel Gandoger, with the bulk of the collection, about 250-300,000 specimens, going to the Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens, he was co-author, with William Henry Harvey, of Flora Capensis, was author of an 1851 botanical treatise called Flora Hamburgensis. The plant genus. CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: R-Z by Umberto Quattrocchi
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Its name refers to an urban agglomeration of 9,992.5 km2, comprising a metropolitan area with 31 municipalities, is the common name for its city centre. The city occupies much of the coastline of Port Phillip bay and spreads into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley, it has a population of 4.9 million, its inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians". The city was founded on 30 August 1835, in the then-British colony of New South Wales, by free settlers from the colony of Van Diemen’s Land, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837 and named in honour of the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. In 1851, four years after Queen Victoria declared it a city, Melbourne became the capital of the new colony of Victoria. In the wake of the 1850s Victorian gold rush, the city entered a lengthy boom period that, by the late 1880s, had transformed it into one of the world's largest and wealthiest metropolises.
After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as interim seat of government of the new nation until Canberra became the permanent capital in 1927. Today, it is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region and ranks 15th in the Global Financial Centres Index; the city is home to many of the best-known cultural institutions in the nation, such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the National Gallery of Victoria and the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building. It is the birthplace of Australian impressionism, Australian rules football, the Australian film and television industries and Australian contemporary dance. More it has been recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a global centre for street art, live music and theatre, it is the host city of annual international events such as the Australian Grand Prix, the Australian Open and the Melbourne Cup, has hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Due to it rating in entertainment and sport, as well as education, health care and development, the EIU ranks it the second most liveable city in the world.
The main airport serving the city is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia, Australia's busiest seaport the Port of Melbourne. Its main metropolitan rail terminus is Flinders Street station and its main regional rail and road coach terminus is Southern Cross station, it has the most extensive freeway network in Australia and the largest urban tram network in the world. Indigenous Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years; when European settlers arrived in the 19th-century, under 2,000 hunter-gatherers from three regional tribes—the Wurundjeri and Wathaurong—inhabited the area. It was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and a vital source of food and water; the first British settlement in Victoria part of the penal colony of New South Wales, was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento. The following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated to Van Diemen's Land and founded the city of Hobart.
It would be 30 years. In May and June 1835, John Batman, a leading member of the Port Phillip Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, claimed to have negotiated a purchase of 600,000 acres with eight Wurundjeri elders. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River, declaring that "this will be the place for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land. In August 1835, another group of Vandemonian settlers arrived in the area and established a settlement at the site of the current Melbourne Immigration Museum. Batman and his group arrived the following month and the two groups agreed to share the settlement known by the native name of Dootigala. Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales, with compensation paid to members of the association. In 1836, Bourke declared the city the administrative capital of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, commissioned the first plan for its urban layout, the Hoddle Grid, in 1837.
Known as Batmania, the settlement was named Melbourne in 1837 after the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose seat was Melbourne Hall in the market town of Melbourne, Derbyshire. That year, the settlement's general post office opened with that name. Between 1836 and 1842, Victorian Aboriginal groups were dispossessed of their land by European settlers. By January 1844, there were said to be 675 Aborigines resident in squalid camps in Melbourne; the British Colonial Office appointed five Aboriginal Protectors for the Aborigines of Victoria, in 1839, however their work was nullified by a land policy that favoured squatters who took possession of Aboriginal lands. By 1845, fewer than 240 wealthy Europeans held all the pastoral licences issued in Victoria and became a powerful political and economic force in Victoria for generations to come. Letters patent of Queen Victoria, issued on 25 June 1847, declared Melbourne a city. On 1 July 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become the Colony of Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital.
The discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a
Macpherson Robertson
Sir Macpherson Robertson KBE was an Australian philanthropist and founder of chocolate and confectionery company MacRobertson's. Macpherson Robertson was born in Victoria, he was the eldest of seven children of Macpherson David Robertson, a Scottish carpenter born in Uruguay, his Irish wife, Margaret. The family came to Ballarat in search of gold but fell on hard times, with the father abandoning them and moving to Fiji. In 1869, his mother returned to Leith, in Scotland, together with Macpherson, his three siblings and another child on the way. In Scotland, at the age of nine, Macpherson started working to support the family taking an apprenticeship with the Victoria Confectionery Co. In 1874, the family returned to Australia at the request of his father living in the Melbourne working class suburb of Fitzroy. Using skills he acquired in Scotland, in 1878, at the age of 19, Macpherson set up a confectionery manufacturing operation in the bathroom of the family home, he made confectionery on Mondays to Thursdays and sold them around Melbourne on Fridays and Saturdays.
His business grew as Mac Robertson Steam Confectionery Works. By the late 1880s the business employed thirty people; the company introduced chewing-gum and fairy floss to Australia as well as well known confectionery names including Freddo Frog, Cherry Ripe, Old Gold Chocolates, Milk Kisses and Columbines. By 1900, it had become the largest confectionery works in Australia with agencies in every state; as part of his marketing strategy, Macpherson maintained a distinctive whiteness to everything he could – the buildings in the Fitzroy factory complex were all painted white and all of his several thousand employees wore white uniforms. Macpherson himself ensured he was always seen in public dressed immaculately in white and rode in a carriage behind two white ponies; the factory complex became known as White City. In 1967 MacRobertson's was acquired by English confectioner Cadbury's which in 1969 merged with Schweppes Australia to become Cadbury Schweppes. On 2 February 2010, Cadbury was purchased by Kraft Foods.
Kraft Foods announced they would be splitting into two companies beginning on 1 October 2012. The confectionery business became Mondelez International. Growth continued through innovative marketing and sponsorships as well as philanthropic donations: In 1921 he promoted a romanticised book of his enterprise entitled A Young Man and a Nail Can. In 1925 he presented a silver mounted shield to establish the MacRobertson International Croquet Shield; the event is now played every three or four years in rotation between Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States. In 1928 he sponsored a circuit of Australia in two Karrier trucks; the five-month expedition departed from Parliament House in Melbourne on 12 April and returned on 12 September 1928. In 1929 he financed a combined British and New Zealand Antarctic expedition. Sir Douglas Mawson named Mac. Robertson Land in his honour, Robertson's 1932 knighthood recognised his support for this expedition. In 1933 he contributed to the Melbourne centenary celebrations, including £40,000 towards the establishment of the Mac.
Robertson Girls' High School. He contributed towards other public works projects as part of the centenary celebrations including the MacRobertson Bridge over the Yarra River at Grange Road, a fountain in front of the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance and the herbarium in the Royal Botanic Gardens. In 1934 he co-founded Western Australian airline MacRobertson Miller Airlines with pilot Horrie Miller. In the same year he sponsored the MacRobertson Air Race with a prize fund of $75,000, an air race from London to Melbourne. Robertson was appointed a Knight Bachelor on 3 June 1932, for services to Antarctic expeditions. On New Year's Day 1935, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for philanthropic services in Victoria. Lack, John,'Robertson, Sir Macpherson' Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp 418–419. OnlyMelbourne Melburnian Bio Maui Croquet Club bio White Hat Tours bio Tom Campbell Black co-winner of the MacRobertson London to Melbourne Air Race 1934 19th World Team Association Croquet Championship 2006 MacRobertson's Confectionery Factory on Culture Victoria
National Herbarium of New South Wales
The National Herbarium of New South Wales was established in 1853. The Herbarium has a collection of more than 1.2 million plant specimens, including scientific and significant collections and samples of Australian flora gathered by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander during the voyage of HMS Endeavour in 1770. The Herbarium is a centre for Australian plant research; these specimens are used for studies of Australian native plants, their relationships and classification. A botanical information service is provided including native plant identifications; the National Herbarium is located in the Robert Brown Building at the Royal Botanic Garden on Mrs Macquaries Road in Sydney. The Herbarium began in 1853 when Charles Moore, Director of the Botanic Garden, assembled 1,800 native specimens. However, the establishment date is said to be 1896 by the encyclopedia of Australian Science. 1901 - 1982: A purpose built building to house the Herbarium collection and a botanical museum designed by the Government Architect opened in 1901.
The building was known as Maiden's Herbarium. It is now known as the Anderson Building and is used for administration and contains the Maiden Theatre, in memory of Joseph Henry Maiden, a previous Botanic Garden's Director.1982 - onwards: The Robert Brown Building opened in 1982. The new Herbarium building was named in honour of colonial botanist Robert Brown, it has three levels when it was opened in 1982 by Neville Wran, housing the herbarium collection, staff offices, a laboratory, scanning electron microscope and full drying room and library. A decade a fourth level was added to provide more work spaces and shelving and a sloping roof to stop leaks; the collection has a worldwide scope with an emphasis on plants of New South Wales and Australian flora including flowering plants, cycads, bryophytes, lichens and fungi. The collection includes 805 of the specimens Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander collected. Specimen records from the collection are contributed to Australia’s Virtual Herbarium, a collaborative project of the Commonwealth and territory herbaria in Australia.
More than 7,000 of the specimens have been digitised as part of the Global Plants Initiative. These digitised specimens form part of the Australasian Virtual Herbarium, an online resource available for anyone to use; the first botanical illustrator at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, Margaret Flockton, was appointed in 1901 when the National Herbarium opened. The Herbarium publishes the journal, Telopea entitled Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium; the journal covers botany in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, specialising in the flora of New South Wales. The herbarium publishes an online key to the plants of New South Wales, together with their descriptions via PlantNet This online resource is based on the Flora of New South Wales The library at the Royal Botanic Garden is part of the National Herbarium, it was established in 1852 and is named after Daniel Solander, employed in 1768 by Joseph Banks to accompany him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. National Herbarium of Victoria List of Herbaria Australasian Virtual Herbarium List of electronic Floras Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney Telopea NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE A comprehensive botanical treatment in an Electronic format Retrieved 18 May 2018
Herbarium
A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; the specimens in a herbarium are used as reference material in describing plant taxa. The same term is used in mycology to describe an equivalent collection of preserved fungi, otherwise known as a fungarium. A xylarium is a herbarium specialising in specimens of wood; the term hortorium has been applied to a herbarium specialising in preserving material of horticultural origin. The oldest traditions of making herbarium collection or Hortus sicci have been traced to Italy. Luca Ghini and his students created herbaria of which the oldest extant one is that of Gherardo Cibo from around 1532. While most of the early herbaria were prepared with sheets bound into books, Carolus Linnaeus came up with the idea of maintaining them on free sheets that allowed their easy re-ordering within cabinets. Commensurate with the need of wildlife conservation, it is desirable to include in a herbarium sheet as much of the plant as possible, or at least representative parts of them in the case of large specimens.
To preserve their form and colour, plants collected in the field are arranged and spread flat between thin sheets, known as'flimsies', dried in a plant press, between blotters or absorbent paper. During the drying process the specimens are retained within their flimsies at all times to minimise damage, only the thicker, absorbent drying sheets are replaced. For some plants it may prove helpful to allow the fresh specimen to wilt before being arranged for the press. An opportunity to check and further lay out the specimen to best reveal the required features of the plant occurs when the damp absorbent sheets are changed during the drying/pressing process; the specimens, which are mounted on sheets of stiff white paper, are labelled with all essential data, such as date and place found, description of the plant and special habitat conditions. The sheet is placed in a protective case; as a precaution against insect attack, the pressed plant is frozen or poisoned, the case disinfected. Certain groups of plants are soft, bulky, or otherwise not amenable to drying and mounting on sheets.
For these plants, other methods of preparation and storage may be used. For example, conifer cones and palm fronds may be stored in labelled boxes. Representative flowers or fruits may be pickled in formaldehyde to preserve their three-dimensional structure. Small specimens, such as mosses and lichens, are air-dried and packaged in small paper envelopes. No matter the method of preservation, detailed information on where and when the plant was collected, habitat and the name of the collector is included; the value of a herbarium is much enhanced by the possession of “types”, that is, the original specimens on which the study of a species was founded. Thus the herbarium at the British Museum, rich in the earlier collections made in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, contains the types of many species founded by the earlier workers in botany, it is rich in types of Australian plants from the collections of Sir Joseph Banks and Robert Brown, contains in addition many valuable modern collections.
Most herbaria utilize a standard system of organizing their specimens into herbarium cases. Specimen sheets are stacked in groups by the species to which they belong and placed into a large lightweight folder, labelled on the bottom edge. Groups of species folders are placed together into larger, heavier folders by genus; the genus folders are sorted by taxonomic family according to the standard system selected for use by the herbarium and placed into pigeonholes in herbarium cabinets. Locating a specimen filed in the herbarium requires knowing the nomenclature and classification used by the herbarium, it requires familiarity with possible name changes that have occurred since the specimen was collected, since the specimen may be filed under an older name. Modern herbaria maintain electronic databases of their collections. Many herbaria have initiatives to digitize specimens to produce a virtual herbarium; these records and images are made publicly accessible via the Internet. Herbarium collections can have great significance and value to science, have a large number of uses.
Herbaria are essential for the study of plant taxonomy, the study of geographic distributions, the stabilizing of nomenclature. Linnaeus's herbarium now belongs to the Linnean Society in England. Specimens housed in herbaria may identify the flora of an area. A large collection from a single area is used in writing a field guide or manual to aid in the identification of plants that grow there. With more specimens available, the author of the guide will better understand the variability of form in the plants and the natural distribution over which the plants grow. Herbaria preserve a historical record of change in vegetation over time. In some cases, plants may become extinct altogether. In such cases, specimens preserved in a herbarium can represent the only record of the plant's original distribution. Environmental scientists make use of such data to track changes in human impact. Herbaria have proven useful as source
Burke and Wills expedition
The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61 of 19 men, led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south, to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres. At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was unknown to the European settlers; the expedition left Melbourne in winter. Bad weather, poor roads and broken-down wagons meant. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River Burke made good progress, reaching Cooper Creek at the beginning of summer; the expedition established a depot camp at the Cooper, Burke and two other men pushed on to the north coast. The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, when they reached the depot at Cooper Creek, they found it had been abandoned just hours earlier. Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861. Several relief expeditions were sent out.
All together, seven men lost their lives, only one man, the Irish soldier John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne. Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush led to a huge influx of migrants, with the local population increasing from 29,000 in 1851 to 139,916 in 1861; the colony became wealthy and Melbourne grew to become Australia's largest city and the second largest city of the British Empire. The boom lasted forty years and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne"; the influx of educated gold seekers from England and Germany led to rapid growth of schools, learned societies and art galleries. The University of Melbourne was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria in 1856; the Philosophical Institute of Victoria was founded in 1854 and became the Royal Society of Victoria after receiving a Royal Charter in 1859. By 1855 there was speculation about possible routes for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line to connect Australia to the new telegraph cable in Java and Europe.
There was fierce competition between the colonies over the route with governments recognising the economic benefits that would result from becoming the centre of the telegraph network. A number of routes were considered including Ceylon to Albany in Western Australia, or Java to the north coast of Australia and either onto east coast, or south through the centre of the continent to Adelaide; the Victorian government organised the Burke and Wills expedition to cross the continent in 1860. The South Australian government offered a reward of £2000 to encourage an expedition to find a route between South Australia and the north coast. In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an Exploration Committee with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an exploring expedition. While interest in inland exploration was strong in the neighbouring colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, in Victoria enthusiasm was limited; the anonymous donation of £1,000 to the Fund Raising Committee of the Royal Society failed to generate much interest and it was 1860 before sufficient money was raised and the expedition was assembled.
The Exploration Committee called for offers of interest for a leader for the Victorian Exploring Expedition. Only two members of the Committee, Ferdinand von Mueller and Wilhelm Blandowski, had any experience in exploration but due to factionalism both were outvoted. Several people were considered for the post of leader and the Society held a range of meetings in early 1860. Robert O'Hara Burke was selected by committee ballot as the leader, William John Wills was recommended as surveyor and third-in-command. Burke had no experience in exploration and it is strange that he was chosen to lead the expedition. Burke was an Irish-born ex-officer with the Austrian army, became police superintendent with no skills in bushcraft. Wills was more adept than Burke at living in the wilderness, but it was Burke's leadership, detrimental to the mission. Rather than take cattle to be slaughtered during the trip the Committee decided to experiment with dried meat; the weight was to slow the expedition down appreciably.
The Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria included: Sir William Foster Stawell, Chief Justice of Victoria Dr David Elliott Wilkie MD. Treasurer Dr John Macadam, Honorary Secretary Professor Georg Neumayer Dr Ferdinand von Mueller, Government Botanist Sir Frederick McCoy, Melbourne University's first professor The Hon. Captain Andrew Clarke Dr Richard Eades, Mayor of Melbourne Charles Whybrow Ligar, Government Surveyor General The Hon Sir Francis Murphy, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Lieutenant John Randall Pascoe, JP Captain Francis Cadell Alfred Selwyn Esq. Government Geologist Reverend Father Dr John Ignatius Bleasdale Clement Hodgkinson Esq. Dr J William McKenna Edward Wilson, Editor of the Argus Dr William Gilbee Sizar Elliott Esq. Dr Solomon Iffla Angus McMillan Esq. James Smith Esq. John Watson Esq. Camels had been used in desert exploration in other parts of the world, but by 1859 only seven camels had been imported into Australia; the Victorian Government appointed George James Landells to purchase 24 camels in India for use in desert exploration.
The animals arrived in Melbourne in June 1860 and the Exploration Committee purchased an additional six from George Coppin's Cremorne Gardens. The camels were hous
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
