Albany Branch
The Albany Branch is a small and dedicated group that run a number of activities. A Wildflower Show is organized every September, as are regular excursions and meetings with guest speakers. The Branch plays a large role in coordinating the Albany Herbarium. The Group is passionate about conservation issues in the area.
The Branch meetings are now held at the DBCA conference room, 120 Albany Hwy, Albany on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 7.30pm.(except January & September). The AGM is held at the February meeting. There is usually a Walk on the following Saturday, members meet to car-pool at a relevant spot in Albany at 9am to travel to a local Reserve or National Park.
President : Heather Anderson
Secretary : Wendy Minchin 9845 1220
Albany Herbarium
The Albany Herbarium is located at the rear of DBCA, entry is the corner of Moir & Hymus Streets, (Black gate). If you want to access the Herbarium to use the resources or to volunteer it is best to contact the Co-ordinators first.
The Herbarium is open Tuesday & Wednesday from 9am to 12noon.
Co-ordinators : Eileen Rodgers 0458 425 296, Lynda Strahan 0438 127 534.
Email : albanyherb@outlook.com (checked Tuesdays & Wednesdays)
Address : Albany Herbarium, PO Box 937, Albany WA 6331
Telephone : 9842 4545
The Albany Wildflower Show
The Wildflower Show is a great exhibition which features over 500 local & named Wildflower specimens.
It is held at the St John’s Hall, York St, Albany. This year the dates are Wed 22nd to Sat 25th September 2021.
Opening hours are from 9am to 4pm, Wed -Fri, 9am t0 1pm Sat. Admission is Adults $5 and children are free.
The St John Ladies provide light lunches & Devonshire teas.
Speaker’s for 2021
March 16: Ruth Haight; Fauna need Flora, An ex vet nurse/wildlife carer, Ruth has stories and information about how to live with our native fauna, and will focus on plant relationships.
April 20: Dr Gillian Craig; The Impact of Fire in the Fitzgerald, This comes out of a project Ravensthorpe are doing to monitor fire effects from photos.
Sylvia leighton, Jane Thompson and Delys Harland; A report on a Mary Bremner grant project helping children to get to know wildflowers in their local school bush patches.
May 25: Basil Shur; Gondwana link eco-restoration: the flora with a look particularly at the new property, Tootanellup, near Frankland.
June 15: Nathan McQuoid; Eucalpyts
August 17: Mark Brundrett; He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at UWA and a Research Associate of the West Australian Herbarium. Recent research has focused on orchid pollination and conservation, restoration of ecosystems and the impacts of fire and weeds on Perth’s urban bushland. He also studies the evolution of plant nutrition traits, biodiversity patterns in Australia and globally and orchid taxonomy and has published a field guide to local orchids, Southwest Identification & Ecology of Australian Orchids
September 22 – 25: Albany Wildflower Show; St John’s Church, York St Albany
October 19: Loxley Fedec; Beetles, bugs & all things Insects. The talk will be about how mapping our biodiversity, using iNaturalist is so important in building our biodiversity understanding. Loxley also likes to promote the Work that the South Coast Threatened Invertebrates Recovery Team do – She is also on that committee – and relate invertebrates back to insect/plant relationships and and why monitoring distribution ranges are relevant.
November 16: Katie Symes & Prue Anderson; WA Fungi
Walk’s for 2021
These are the planned walk’s, they can change closer to the date usually because of the weather. Updates will be available on the WSWA facebook page.
Feb 20: Lake Vancouver, Goode Beach, Albany
March 20: Lake Seppings, Middleton Beach, Albany
April 24: South Stirlings, Manypeaks
May 22: Banksia Farm, Mt Barker
June 27: A Fungi Walk, Denmark
July 24: the City of Albany Reserve
August 21: Orchid walk, Various places around Albany.
September: Wildflower Show 22 – 25th October St John’s Hall Albany
October 23: Twin Creek Reserve, Knight rd Porongurup.