Overland Track Seed Collection Walk Results

In January of 2022, James Wood, of the Seed Collection Centre at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, led the second Overland Track Seed Collection Walk with the Tasmanian Walking Company to collect seed as well as survey the vegetation and tell the stories of the native vegetation. Over the 6-day walk, seed collections were made of from 4 different shrubs - Allocasuarina zephyrea, Epacris gunnii, Leptospermum lanigerum and Melaleuca virens, totaling 450,000 viable seed. Additionally, a sample of a distinctive, white-flowered, Epilobium was collected from Mt Pelion East. This plant was spotted on last year’s walk, but the importance of the find wasn’t appreciated until several days later when photograph from the trip were being examined. With samples secured, some of the material collected was pressed as an herbarium specimen and some of it was grown on at the RTBG nursery. These samples will assist ongoing work at the Tasmanian Herbarium to ascertain the identity of a distinctive, and possibly very restricted alpine herb.