NSW

Discover how scientists have propagated hundreds of endangered Hairy geebung plants and restored them in native habitats in Sydney to help save them from extinction!

The endangered Persoonia hirsuta, known commonly as Hairy geebung, is a sprawling shrub with distinct yellow flowers that grows in patches across the Sydney region and typically blooms in summer.

Thousands of these plants used to make their home within dry sclerophyll woodlands, which are dominated by eucalypts and/or trees with small leathery leaves, but the species has gradually died off over the past two decades due to land clearing and other factors.

The small numbers of surviving plants paint a grim picture - it is estimated most current plant populations in Sydney consist of less than 10 individual specimens, which are scattered in groups across the metropolitan. 

Saving this humble Australian plant from extinction has been a passion for Dr Nathan Emery, a Restoration Biology Officer from the Australian Institute of Botanical Science, who is based at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.

And the research efforts of Dr Emery and the team of horticulturalists at the Institute have been rewarded. The team used important information from restoration trials in 2014 at NSW mining sites to recently translocate the plant to wider parts of Sydney.

Passing on research success to wider Sydney

In November this year, the team provided 100 plants to Campbelltown City Council and worked with the Kentlyn Bushcare group, in south-west Sydney, providing conservation, propagation and translocation advice for the Persoonia species in local bushland.

The plants will also provide a key food resource for local wildlife, such as birds, kangaroos and wallabies, across different local ecosystems.

Dr Emery said data collected from the program will be used to help with the management and propagation of other small or declining populations of Hairy geebung across Sydney.

To assist with the conservation efforts, a small seed collection of the Persoonia is now stored at the Australian PlantBank, which is the home of plant conservation research, germplasm collection and storage in New South Wales, located at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan. A number of plants also exist in the Living Collection on site at the Garden.

Continue reading on The Royal Botanical Gardens Sydney