A number of forest tree species which are of great interest to other developing countries in the tropics, are indigenous to Papua New Guinea. They include two important coniferous genera, Araucaria and Agathis, and several important broadleaved genera, such as Acacia, Eucalyptus, Casuarina and Terminalia.
Within the framework of a cooperative programme of seed collection between the Office of Forests in Papua New Guinea and FAO, the Office of Forests has already earlier collected and distributed seed of two species of Araucaria (see note on p.40 in this issue of FGRI). The present seed collection programme in Papua New Guinea includes the collection of provenance seedlots of two top-priority species, Eucalyptus deglupta and Acacia mangium.
During 1980, a total of 2010 g of seed of E. deglupta was collected by the Office of Forests from 8 sites in New Britain (latitudinal range of provenance seedlots: 4°43' to 5°41'S; longitudinal range: 150°26' to 151°48'E; altitudinal range: 40 to 120 m a.s.l.), and 1 site in the Morobe Province, Mainland PNG (7°56'S; 147°14'E; 600 m a.s.l.). Collections will be continued in 1981 to more fully sample the natural range of the species and to augment the supply of seed of some of the provenances already collected. It is hoped that seed for international provenance trials can be distributed in 1982.
Provenance collections of A. mangium will be carried out in PNG in 1981. When a satisfactory coverage of the species range has been sampled, seed from these collections will be distributed for international provenance trials, together with seed collected from the natural range of the species in Australia and possibly in Indonesia.
