New Zealand Fungal Herbarium (PDD)

Background• started about 1920 by G.H. Cunningham• transferred to DSIR, Plant Diseases Division in 1936. • in 1992 the herbarium and its associated research became part of Landcare Research.

Functions • to acquire, preserve and maintain the national collection of New Zealand fungi; • to support associated systematic research; • to provide a specialist information service for various organisations and government departments both within New Zealand and throughout the Pacific; • to be a repository for fungi of ecological significance • for verification of plant disease records for New Zealand and for island nations of the South Pacific; • to underpin quarantine and border control decisions.

Collection Size• over 70,000 accessioned specimens• between 1,000 and 2,000 specimens added each year Geographic Coverage• over 150 countries represented in the collection with the following major holdings: New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Australia, Canada, Germany, USA.

Specimen Protection• collection is housed in air-conditioned facilities• fire protection by Inergen gas flooding system• type specimens are held in locked, fire-retardant cabinets• annual fumigation of entire collection

Database

• all collection data electronic• collections holdings on WWW

Database includes:• nomenclature of names• host associations• literature• descriptions• illustrations

http://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz

• will shortly link to plant names database

4

International Collection of Micro-organisms from Plants (ICMP)

• living collection of bacterial and fungal cultures • international collection of plant associated bacteria• New Zealand’s main collection of fungal cultures • over 11,000 strains of micro-organisms, including 6,500 strains of

bacteria and 4,500 strains of fungi • preservation methods:

– culture plugs vacuum-dried in glass ampoules– culture plugs in glycerol solution within short plastic straws,

frozen in liquid nitrogen

International Collection of Micro-organisms from Plants (ICMP)

• searchable database now on-linehttp://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz/icmp/search_cultures.asp

International Collection of Micro-organisms (ICMP)

• searchable database now on-linehttp://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz/icmp/search_cultures.asp