[Pollinator] Abstract and Details for the Dwyer Lecture

[Peter Bernhardt]

Date: Monday, May 6
Time: 4 PM
Place: Shoenberg Theater - Auditorium of the Missouri Botanical Garden
(entrance on Shaw)
Title: Conservation: Hope in the Age of Extinction
Speaker:  Professor Kingsley Dixon, Botanic Garden and Parks Authority,
Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Abstract



When Charles Darwin visited the southwest of Western Australia in 1836 he
remarked that never had he seen such a dull and uninteresting place.  He
never again visited.  But had Darwin stepped ashore and ventured just a few
miles inland he would have discovered a botanical wonderland unrivalled for
diversity, richness and exuberance.  Today the state of Western Australia
has an astonishing 12,000 species of flowering plant with the richest
assemblage of ground orchids on earth - including the remarkable Western
Australian underground orchid that spends its entire life cycle buried in
the dry and parched soils of the interior.  Wherever you look there are
marvels as you wander landscapes replete with the greatest diversity of
insect eating plants and the world's richest diversity of the blueberry
family.  And nowhere else is pollination of flowers taken to such extremes
with one in ten plants pollinated by birds or where you are more than
likely to see hapless male wasps being sexually deceived by orchid flowers
that are 'vegetable females'.  For botanical science the southwest of the
remarkable continent of Australia provides a laboratory unparalleled in the
opportunities for unravelling nature's mysteries.  This Dwyer lecture will
share some of these discoveries and advances including how smoke from bush
fires stimulates our flora to burst into colourful carpets of colour and
how today, with the threats of unbeatable climate change upon us, the
science that is being used to save species from the brink of extinction.  I
do hope you will join me on a journey of discovery to the Great South Land
and unlike Darwin, see the seemingly inexhaustible beauty and brilliance
that is the Western Australian outback.
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