Teaching

The School of Botany teaches courses in plant systematics and diversity to undergraduate students at second and third year level. This covers both practical (identification) and theoretical (methodological) aspects, and services students enrolled in the Faculty of Science and the Institute of Land and Food Resources. An important component of these courses is training students in the use of a modern herbarium, as they are required to identify plants and compile fully documented plant collections for assessment. The Herbarium is the critical facility in this task.

The strengths of The Herbarium as a reference resource are currently being consolidated with concerted collecting of species that are presently under-represented. Special emphasis is being placed on introduced "weed" species (often poorly represented in herbaria), developing an easily accessible grass reference collection for agricultural students, and developing collections from specific regions (e.g., the Bogong High Plains). As well as pressed and mounted specimens The Herbarium includes a range of specimens preserved in alcohol, and a teaching collection of fossil plants, and a large slide collection.