Cape
Town Internship
My
input into “A Conspectus of southern African Cyperacea” (a forthcoming volume
in the Strelitzia series) will soon come to a close. Then the editors will take over! So
last year, when formulating the GTI proposal (see SABONET News 6.3),
I included a description of my next project: “A phylogeny of the Tribe Schoeneae
from a southern African perspective”.
The
first phase would be to study the genus Tetraria, using molecular
techniques, and the second phase would be to extend the study to the remaining
genera within the tribe. Hopefully, this would help to resolve some of the
taxonomic problems within this essentially Gondwanan, mainly fynbos group
of plants, and I would gain my Ph.D.
Early
in the New Year, I received an email from Dr Tony Verboom, the new incumbent
in the post previously held by Peter Linder at the University of Cape Town.
He asked if I knew of anyone currently engaged in molecular work on—you
guessed it, Tetraria—as he was applying for funds for this project.
After
a flurry of messages between Cape Town and Pretoria, and an urgent meeting
with Prof. Gideon Smith, SABONET kindly funded a flying visit for me to
Cape Town between 4 and 8 February. We met, discussed the issue, and have
put together an agreement that will enable us to work on our respective
projects and to collaborate where they meet. So everyone is happy! I was
able to add nearly 1,000 new specimen records from BOL and NBG to my database
of Schoeneae and also re-identified a number of collections.
—by Clare Archer
