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State Herbarium of South Australia

organization in Adelaide, Australia

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History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 14, 2025
Entity authorityQ7603235 ↗
Source-derived summary

The State Herbarium of South Australia, sometimes called the South Australian Herbarium, and having the herbarium code, AD, is located in Adelaide, South Australia. It is one of several State and Commonwealth herbaria in Australia. The Department for Environment and Water is the state agency which is responsible for the Herbarium, but the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium (established by an Act of Parliament, most recently the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium Act 1978) is charged with its establishment and maintenance.

The Herbarium publishes for the electronic Flora of South Australia FloraSA and the Census of South Australian plants, algae and fungi. It also publishes the journal, Swainsona (formerly Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens).

History

In 1954 the State Herbarium of South Australia was founded as part of the Adelaide Botanic Garden. The first flora collection of the state was produced by Richard Schomburgk (1811–1891) in 1875.

The State Herbarium's collections include collections of Ralph Tate, John McConnell Black (via the South Australian Museum), the moss herbarium of Professor David Guthrie Catcheside (1907–1994), and the collections of the Field Naturalists Society of South Australia.

Since 2000 the Herbarium has been located in the historic Tram Barn A building adjacent to the Adelaide Botanic Garden's Bicentennial Conservatory on Hackney Road, Adelaide.

In late 2011 the Herbarium was due to list its one millionth specimen, possibly a new species.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “State Herbarium of South Australia” as organization in Adelaide, Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around State, Herbarium and South.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1978, 1954, 1811, 1891—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with State, Herbarium and South providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “State Herbarium of South Australia”, the useful work is to connect “organization in Adelaide, Australia” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7603235. VIAF identifies the subject as 135229788. The Library of Congress control number is no2005060633. Authority coordinates are -34.917, 138.614. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 1954, 1811 and 1891.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “State Herbarium of South Australia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow State Herbarium of South Australia primary sources, State Herbarium of South Australia archive and State research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “State Herbarium of South Australia”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “State Herbarium of South Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.