Many Beautiful Things: Colonial Botanists' Accounts of the North Queensland Rainforests

Abstract

Colonial botanists played an important role in both elucidating and reshaping the nature of the North Queensland rainforests between 1860 and 1915. The Government Botanist of Victoria, Ferdinand von Mueller, was the first to begin to document the plant life of North Queensland. In 1859, on separation from New South Wales, Queensland's first Colonial Botanist was appointed to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens; this role was filled initially by Walter Hill, then by Frederick Manson Bailey.They were based at a distance from the northern rainforests and largely relied on local collectors to supply them with specimens that they would then identify, name and describe. They were also part of a network that assisted in the introduction of plants to North Queensland from other tropical locations for acclimatization purposes, and they worked to promote the development of tropical agriculture in the region. Colonial botanists not only promoted the settlement of rainforest areas and utilization of rainforest species, they also recorded and commented on the associated processes of environmental change that they observed.