The National Herbarium of NSW 
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predated the wider community awareness and concern for environmental and 
biodiversity conservation that has helped botanic gardens worldwide to redefine their 
aims, and also the resurgent interest in phylogeny, driven by cladistics and molecular 
genetics, that has revivified biological systematics. 
The upturn was slow but, once started, made steady progress. From the late 1930's 
R.H. (Bob) Anderson (Herbarium Curator and subsequently Chief Botanist, 1936-64) 
was able to appoint graduates with research experience who were becoming available 
to fill new botanical positions. Published scientific output increased greatly after 1939 
when the series Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium was 
initiated, forerunner of today's Telopea. The Gardens and Herbarium were 
administratively re-united and ecological work introduced under Director Knowles 
Mair (1964-70), while educational programs were initiated by Director John Beard 
(1970-72). A new herbarium building and the many new opportunities it brought, as 
well as expansion of the scientific programs were notable during L.A.S. (Lawrie) 
Johnson's leadership (1972-1985, Briggs 2001) while improvement of the horticultural 
lands and their landscape features characterised Carrick Chambers' directorship 
(1986-1996), along with further expansion of herbarium and office space in the new 
building. The development of the satellite gardens at Mount Tomah and Mount 
Annan, publication of a four-volume Flora of New South Wales (Harden 1990-93, 2000, 
& in press), establishment of electronic data recording and DNA research were 
developments that energised the whole organisation and were spread -to varying 
extents- over several directorships during the last three decades of the century. Recent 
emphasis with Director Frank Howarth (1996-present), across both the Herbarium and 
Gardens, is on biodiversity conservation, communicating information by electronic 
media and forging closer links with other government agencies and universities. 
From the 1940s into the 1960s, the Herbarium had been headed by an experienced 
Botanist informally although effectively guiding less knowledgeable botanists, with 
management a relatively infrequent and unwelcome interruption into botanical work, 
as in Joyce Vickery's time (1936-68). Acknowledgment that the Herbarium and 
scientific programs needed to be managed as an entity within the organisation came 
with Lawrie Johnson's appointment as Deputy Chief Botanist (1968-72); the position 
was subsequently retitled Senior Assistant Director (Scientific) while held by myself 
(1972-97). Now there is a Director Plant Sciences Branch, Tim Entwisle, assisted by a 
management team, with the Herbarium and systematics forming the Plant Diversity 
Section. The scope of research has widened geographically and also into new fields, 
especially in algae and bryophytes, and now the systematists have ecologists, plant 
pathologists and horticultural researchers among their colleagues, but economic 
botany (apart from the occurrence of weeds) and the development of general fungal 
collections are not current priorities. International links have been greatly 
strengthened and cooperation among botanists and botanical institutions within 
Australia fostered by the Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria, the Australian 
Systematic Botany Society and other scientific associations. 
The Director's office has continued to be where Maiden established it, except for a 
short period when Director John Beard had his office in the Cunningham Building. The 
Herbarium and its staff moved in 1982 from Maiden's building to a long sought and 
newly constructed adjacent building, providing the desperately overcrowded 
collections and library with space for some years of growth, as well as vastly improved 
working conditions and space for laboratories. Research in molecular systematics, a 
database of specimen data and a volunteers' program to mount the specimens could 
then be initiated. The space vacated was quickly put to use as a classroom and offices 
for education programs, lecture theatre, accommodation for Corporate Services staff. 
Visitor Centre and Gardens' Shop. The Visitor Centre functioned there until 2000 when 
