New plants identified in WA's Kimberley

Western Australia's Kimberley region is an untapped gold mine of plant species, with
more than 80 new plants identified in the region, botanists say.
Kings Park botanists and brothers Matt and Russell Barrett have lodged a collection
of 104 new species from the region at the WA herbarium.
Using helicopters to access remote locations, the pair identified 88 previously
unknown species and 16 found for the first time in WA.
Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) herbarium curator Dr Kevin Thiele
said the collection was important to development considerations in the region.
"It's tremendously exciting and it's also tremendously important because the
Kimberley is an area ... where there are big plans," Dr Thiele told AAP.
"In order to sustainably develop we absolutely need to know what plants and animals
are there.
"What we know from this exercise and analysis we know the Kimberley is probably one
of the least explored regions in Australia."
Some of the plants were relatively small and obscure but others spectacular,
including a new hibiscus species, with large, bright yellow flowers which grows to
more than two metres.
"This species has only recently been discovered because it only grows in a very
small area in a special habitat," Dr Thiele said.
A type of bladderwort, a small carnivorous plant that catches water creatures in
special underwater traps is among the new species.
"It grows and flowers in the wet season and has been found in just one creek in a
remote area," Dr Thiele said.
New species were regularly discovered across WA but Dr Thiele said it was rare to
add such a large number at once to the herbarium.
Dr Matt Barrett said the work had been done over 15 years but formalised in four
months.
Dr Barrett said the brothers' interest in botany began as youngsters while growing
up on a Kimberley cattle station.
"Weekends we'd go out and have a look at areas that probably no white person had
ever set foot on before," he said.
"It wasn't very long before we started finding new species. We just kept going on
from there."
Dr Barrett said many thought of the region as a dry desert but in the wet season the
area, typified by rugged sandstone, eucalyptus and rainforest in patches, was also
home to waterfalls.
It was important to understand what is there, he said.
Dr Barret said his team knew of areas in which between five and seven species were
known only from that site, making the region special.
"And some of those are effectively being surveyed for mining so if we mine that
whole area without actually understanding what's there, those species could
completely slip under the radar because we don't know about them."
Dr Thiele said the Kimberley was an "untapped gold mine" of new species.
"The bigger picture of this is this just shows how many species are there that have
never been seen before, have never been sighted, described or named," he said.
"You couldn't do an exercise like this probably anywhere in Australia like the
Kimberley."