Plea for assistance by a group of plant lovers in Toowoomba and Darling Downs region

Can you help us?

A local group of plant lovers has initiated a project to develop a field guide to the plants of Toowoomba and the Downs based around the Condamine River catchment. Our inspiration is the excellent Mangroves to Mountains by Glenn Leiper et al. Our working title is Condamine Country: A Field Guide to the Plants of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs.

To that end, we are seeking photos of local flora and would be pleased to receive any good shots you might have that you are willing to share with us. The project is not a profit-making venture, so no payment for images is possible, however authorship of any images we use will be acknowledged.

Details for photo submission

·We are seeking photos that are in focus and show the features of the plant clearly.

· Ideally photos should show flowers, foliage and any other features of significance for identification.

   (The field guide is aimed at ordinary people with no particular botanical expertise. The most suitable photos for our purposes are the ones which show the feature/s of the plant which are most likely to attract the attention of a curious amateur.)

· Photos should be as high resolution as possible and in JPEG (jpg) or TIFF (tif) format; we may need to crop or otherwise adjust images.

· Photos should be of wild plants only (not garden specimens)

· Photos can be of introduced as well as of native species.

 (We intend to include a selection of introduced plants.)

· Please name any files you send us in this way:

o [Genus] [species] [your given name] [your surname] [the location of the plant] [month taken] [year taken] (e.g. Acacia blakei Fred Neurk Clark Rd Chinchilla Feb 2018)

o Omit any of the detail above that is unknown; if the plant itself is unidentified, please replace  [genus] and [species] with the word [unknown] (e.g. unknown Fred Neurk Clark Rd Chinchilla Feb  2018)

o If you are submitting more than one photo of a particular species, please add a number at the end (1,  2, etc.)

· Please limit your submission/s to three photos of any particular species.

If you have photos that you think would be suitable for our book that you’re willing to share, please send them by email to: condaminecountry@gmail.com. (It would help if you could limit the number of file attachments to any email – say a maximum of three files per email.) We will be grateful for any help you can give us!

The Condamine Country Team:

Trish Gardner, Kerrie Rathie, Peter Macqueen, Steve Plant, Lisa Churchward, Greg Spearritt

Map of area covered by Condamine River Catchment   (supplied by Trish Gardner)