Visit Australian Parliament House and enjoy a private walking tour with a friendly guide and experience the gardens bursting with the rich red and gold colours of autumn. Bookings are essential.
Andrea, from CSIRO, will share stories from the new science book Wild Collections. Learn about sharks living in sponges, orchids flowering underground, Spotted Handfish guarding their eggs, quirky tales of worm bums, Darkling beetles undertaking a decathlon, and much more.
The next Plant Recognition Group workshop will focus on agaric fungi (mushrooms and toadstools). Heino Lepp from the mycology collection of the Australian National Herbarium will talk about the macroscopic features that help identify agarics and will have fresh specimens on hand.
Roger, formerly of CSIRO, will tell a tale of mystery and suspense involving two geneticists, some cemeteries, a taxonomist, a survey, sheep, habitat loss, citizen scientists and a sceptic.
Charlie Blumer and Jon Darvill explore the identities and ecology of some of the 200-odd native bees and other pollinators in the ACT. They identify why they matter, the threats to them, and how we can help them.
Heidi, from Australian National Herbarium, will give an overview of taxonomic and nomenclatural principles, provide a gentle introduction to modern methods used in orchid taxonomy and discuss some interesting orchid case studies.