Projects

I have been involved in many projects where my botanical expertise has made the difference. Below I list some of the larger ones. If you have any similar projects that you would like me to work on, please contact me. I can work with individuals or organisations.

Hortus siccus of Petrus Cadé, anno 1566.

The Hortus siccus of Petrus Cadé was made in 1566 in Brabant. It is the oldest Dutch herbarium and one of the oldest collections of dried plants in the world. As a Master's student at Utrecht University I had the opportunity to work on this collection. I identified all the plants preserved in this valuable book and this became part of my Master's dissertation. It was published in the Archives of Natural History in 2002.

Ferns of the Hortus botanicus, Amsterdam.

The fern collection of the Amsterdam botanical garden was is disarray and needed identifying and reorganising. The curator of the garden contracted me to verify existing names and identify unnamed ferns in their collection.

Tiptoe through the tulips

For the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, I produced a checklist, identified nomenclatural issues and sorted out the typification of all ca 75 species of tulips (Tulipa). Because of the complicated taxonomy, complex hybridisation and convoluted horticultural history of this genus is was a challenging task. The results were very interesting and were published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society in 2013. This work was in collaboration with the Royal Horticultural Society.

Mount Benia, Western Australia

A small reserve near Jurien Bay in Western Australia has never been surveyed before. I was asked to collect samples and produce a checklist for this unique vegetation. Two field trips to this biodiversity hotspot have been made during the late winter and mid spring and this yielded several hundred species for this area of two square kilometres. The project is ongoing and some specimens still need to be identified. Several new species have already been encountered.