Alice Springs is banking on a bright future

By Holly Wyatt

The gritty, arid environment of Central Australia is home to a diverse and awe-inspiring range of plant species. This provides nourishment, from bush foods and medicine, to wildflower colour palettes to inspire artists, sacred trees, connection to country for aboriginal peoples, and shelters some of Australia’s rarest animals. The vast and unforgiving landscape is in a delicate balance for both flora and fauna in the region, and the Alice Springs Desert Park (ASDP) plays a role in practical conservation outcomes as well as advocacy through the education of visitors to the region.

Nestled at the base of the West MacDonnell Ranges, seven kilometres from Alice Springs, and home to the Yeperenye and Wild Dog (dingo) dreaming, the Desert Park is a botanic garden and purpose-built precinct dedicated to the education of visitors and conservation of local fauna and flora.

The Desert Park holds over 400 Central Australian plant species including threatened endemics: Acacia latzii, Acacia peuce, Acacia pickardii, Acacia undoolyana, Babingtonia behrii, Carex fascicularis, Eleocharis papillosa. Eremophila prostrata, Livistona mariae, Macrozamia macdonnellii, Minuria tridens, Olearia macdonnellensis, Ricinocarpos gloria-medii, Santalum acuminatum, and Typhonium sp. Sandover.

As part of The Australian Seed Bank Partnership, the Desert Park collaborates with 15 organisations, including 10 conservation seed banks in Australia’s top botanic gardens, state environment agencies, non-governmental organisations, and the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership at Kew Gardens in the UK in a global effort to protect plant life from extinction by storing seeds from wild plant species in underground vaults. The objective is to store seeds from 450 taxa (ideally 10,000 seeds per taxa) in an active seed bank at the Desert Park and duplicate them in overseas facilities.

“Importantly, we also store Central Australian seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway), which protects seed samples from nearly every country worldwide. This initiative serves as a backup for gene bank collections, securing the foundation of our future food supply,” said Bruce Pascoe, Acting Director of Alice Springs Desert Park.

Banked seed is routinely tested for ongoing viability under differing conditions. Horticultural staff at the park are currently working in collaboration with the Northern Territory Herbarium botanical team to test 73 species of seed to assess germination viability after cold storage.

The Alice Springs Desert Park encompasses approximately 15,000 ha on the outskirts of the town. Much of this area is infested with Buffel Grass (Cenchrus ciliaris), a drought-resistant grass introduced to the Northern Territory (NT) in the 1960s to feed cattle and control dust. Buffel has become a notorious household name and a priority for NT Parks and Wildlife to manage its spread and devastation of ecosystems, biodiversity and fire risk. Specific locations in the MacDonnell Ranges have held focus as part of a government-led ‘Priority Places Program’. Identifying important populations of nationally threatened species at risk due to the impacts of Buffel Grass is one of the initial steps in the project. This is being undertaken by staff of the Flora and Fauna Division. The Desert Park actively controls Buffel in its botanical display areas and on fire breaks to protect significant trees and other vegetation across the site. The weeds branch of the NT government also uses the Desert Park as a research site for trialling different methods of Buffel control.

The Desert Park continues to build its seed bank botanical collection of threatened species and its collaborative research efforts with the NT Herbarium. Prompted by a tip-off from a ranger at Ormiston Gorge, the Senior Botanist from the Central Australian Herbarium and Nursery

Manager from the Desert Park visited an area near Serpentine Chalet in Tjoritja National Park to map the extent of the Olearia macdonnellensis population and to collect seed. They will then research seed biology from these populations and assess the distribution and density of Buffel Grass within and surrounding the area.

Three populations were found, one with over 320 plants. Seed was gathered for testing and banking, and GPS data was collected.

Distribution: Olearia macdonnellensis is endemic to the arid southern region of the Northern Territory. It is categorised as vulnerable in Australia and threatened in Northern Territory.

You may see this species in a few locations within the Alice Springs Desert Park botanical garden. It flowers between February, July, and October and is fruiting in July, August, and October.

Holly Wyatt

Business Development Coordinator

Alice Springs Desert Park

T. 08 8951 8711

Holly.Wyatt@nt.gov.au