Staff from Te Papa’s Botany team spend about three weeks in the field each year. Some of the field trips are for specific research programmes (e.g., collecting a particular group of species from around the country), while others are for general collection development (e.g., collecting all species from a particular locality).
We are regular attendees at the annual John Child Bryophyte and Lichen Workshop, which focuses on mosses, liverworts, and lichens. In recent years, we have undertaken a three or four day field-trip to collect from different parts of the Wairarapa, since this region is underrepresented in New Zealand’s botanical collections.