Beckler's Botanical Bounty continues!

 While this blog has not been very active, our group certainly has been! We went back to Menindee in 2012, collecting and painting more specimens. 

The old shearing shed in Kinchega National Park, Menindee

To remind us what this project is all about I am republishing some of Mali Moir's comments about the project.

Our project trip is called: Beckler's Botanical Bounty - The Flora of Menindee; 150th commemorative collection.

We are a group of botanical artists from Melbourne and Bendigo.

The inspiration for the trip came about through the 150th celebration of the Burke & Wills Expedition. It was originally suggested by Dr. Beverly Woods, who attends my botanical art class at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, that we go to Menindee to paint the wildflowers.

As I am a scientific illustrator I searched for scientific relevance and decided to research the roll of Dr. Hermann Beckler on the Burke and Wills trip. He was the medical doctor and botanical collector for the expedition. When the party split Dr. Beckler stayed on in Menindee for 3 months making many collections. The National Herbarium have on their record that he collected 120 taxa.

I thought, as we were collecting for our paintings, we could also collect for the National Herbarium of Victoria in Melbourne. As we were to be collecting in New South Wales, it would be a courtesy to   forward a duplicate voucher to the NSW Herbarium at the same time.

Our aim was to collect the same species of plants that Beckler collected in the same location. 

And so, in October 2010, the first group of ten artists and two botanists went to spend about a week in Menindee, and the Project had begun.

Mali at work in the shearers' quarters, Kinchega

We want to show you the paintings we are creating, the incredible flora we are finding and the adventures we are having in the stunning Big Sky country of outback NSW. They will be coming up in the following posts.