Thursday Talks are back!

Our Thursday lunchtime talks are back!

Lunchtime talks are held at 12.30 pm every Thursday from February to November. Talks last for 1 hour. We welcome gold coins donations. The Friends use donations received at each talk to support Gardens’ programs and development and thank all those who have donated. Please note: unless otherwise indicated, talks are in the ANBG Theatrette.

It is a good idea to reserve a seat at the talks that you wish to attend; several talks are booked out very quickly. The booking link for each talk is on the www.friendsanbg.org.au/calendar entry for the talk. Bookings can be made from the Friday before the talk until Wednesday night before the talk.

The Friends of the ANBG thank the speakers who volunteer their time and talents to further the knowledge of all attending events in the Gardens. Some summaries or PowerPoint presentations of Thursday talks are available to Friends at the ANBG Library. Please direct queries about the talks to the Thursday Talks Team: email talks@friendsanbg.org.au

The talks are in line with COVID-19 guidelines which can change rapidly.

The Friends Calendar www.friendsanbg.org.au/calendar has information on all talks through until the 20th April including:

9 February:  Honorary Professor Penny Olsen will briefly trace the 300-year history of Australian bird art — from the crude engravings illustrating accounts of the earliest European voyages of discovery to the diversity of artwork available today. She will be happy to sign copies of her book 'Feather and Brush' after the talk.

16 February:  Professor Justin Borevitz from the Research School of Biology, ANU will introduce precision landscape regeneration, including methods in Eucalyptus foundation species to re-build agro-ecosystems, methods for boosting soil carbon with microbes and management, and the outsized role Australia can have for world’s planetary health and resilience.

23 February:  Emeritus Professor Patrick De Deckker ‘The extraordinary scientific achievements of the French Baudin expedition (1800-1804) in Australian waters’  In this talk, Patrick will outline the numerous discoveries and achievements made by the French expedition. He will discuss some of its cartographic accomplishments and compare some with those made by Matthew Flinders at about the same time.

2 March:  Dr James Clugston ‘Towards a better understanding into the Bush Peas Mirbelieae (Fabaceae) in Australia’.  Recent evidence shows that the tribe Mirbelieae is greatly underdescribed and James, from the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, will talk about recent advances in DNA sequencing of Mirbelieae that has helped a consensus on the taxonomic relationship of species and genera within the tribe.

9 March:  Dr Melissa Snape ‘Connecting Nature, Connecting People: joining the dots for wildlife connectivity across Canberra’.  Mel, from ACT Government’s Conservation Research, will focus on urban habitat connectivity, and government initiative to incorporate biodiversity considerations more fully into our planning system.

16 March:  Dr Heide Zimmer ‘Orchids of Norfolk Island and their place within the Australasian Orchidaceae’.  Heidi, of the Australian National Herbarium, will talk about her recent fieldwork on Norfolk Island (alongside Mark Clements), from retracing the steps of Bauer to find the critically endangered Adelopetalum apetalum to literally falling over orchids on well-worn walking tracks!

You can see information on all the talks in the Friends Calendar www.friendsanbg.org.au/calendar.