Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria |
In February 2002, after a career spanning over 40 years Bernie Hyland (rain forest botanist) retired from CSIRO.
Bernie first started with the Queensland Department of Forestry in 1960, and in 1971 he moved to the Commonwealth Forest Research Institute, then to CSIRO in 1975 for the Division of Forest Research and finally in 1985 he transferred to the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry. From 1993 he has been part of the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research (CPBR).
He was instrumental in the development of the herbarium
in Atherton [QRS] which
at the time of his retirement housed approx. 130,000 plant collections. These collections were incorporated into the Australian Tropical Herbarium located in Cairns, Queensland, when it opened in 2007.
He has made significant contributions
to the understanding of Australia's rain forest. Bernie's major
project on which he has been working for approx. 40 years is "Australian
Tropical Rain Forest Plants". This is an interactive identification
and information system which now covers all the trees, shrubs and vines across
northern Australias rain forests, published on CD-ROM and includes 2154
species. Bernies foresight in developing this product has been recognized
world-wide as an innovative contribution to botany and the distribution of
information, so difficult to make accessible in other ways. The rain forest
key has been an extremely successful venture and Bernie should be proud of
his efforts.
From February 2002 Bernie continued as a CSIRO Honorary Research Fellow to complete the Rainforest Key CD-ROM project.
Source: Pers. Comm. Judy West 2002
Portrait Photo: 1999, M.Fagg (APII H.153)
Data from 32,431 specimens