SEED COLLECTIONS OF ACACIAS CARRIED OUT IN 1986 IN WESTERN PROVINCE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA ¹

by

N.S. Howcroft
Forest Research Station,
P.O. Box 134, Bulolo, Morobe Province,
Papua New Guinea

INTRODUCTION

In 1986 a joint seed collection expedition was conducted to the Western Province of Papua New Guinea to collect Acacia seed. This involved members of the PNG Forestry Department's research section, Mr. Howcroft and Mr. Tiki and two members of the CSIRO Division of Forestry Research, Canberra, Mr. Thomson and Mr. J. Cole.

The seed collection expedition was supported by FAO's Forestry Department within the framework of a cooperative programme of seed collection between the Office of Forests in Papua New Guinea, CSIRO Australia and FAO.

Similar seed collections have also earlier been carried out in the Western Province of PNG of a number of indigenous forest tree species which are of interest to other developing countries in the tropics; seed from these collections has been made available to interested developing countries for research purposes.

These earlier collections are described in previous issues of FGRI where also a detailed description of the geographical occurrence and ecology of the Western Province can be found (for reference see FGRI no. 12 pp. 9–15, FGRI no. 10 p. 40, FGRI no. 8 pp. 5–11).

SEED OF ACACIAS COLLECTED

Seed was collected of Acacia aulacocarpa, A. auriculiformis, A. crassicarpa, A. magnium.

The seed collected was split between Forestry Department, PNG and CSIRO.

Table 1 gives information of provenance, number of seed trees collected from and range of height and diameter (dbh) for seed trees.

Map 1 shows Acacia seed collection localities.

SEED DISTRIBUTION

Surplus to local needs of collected seed of Acacias listed in Table 1 is available for research purposes in developing countries in the sample sizes of 20g, 30g and 50g respectively from the Office of Forests, P.O. Box 5055, Boroko, Papua New Guinea; and from the Tree Seed Centre, CSIRO Division of Forest and Forest Products Research, P.O. Box 4008, Queen Victoria Terrace, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600, Australia (exchange basis or purchase covering handling and despatch).

Interested countries should write to the addresses above with a copy of the request addressed to the Director, Forest Resources Division, FAO (Via delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy).

Each request should be accompanied by short information on earlier experiences with tropical Acacia species, climatic information on the proposed trial sites, the experimental design to be used and details on import and/or phytosanitary certificates needed. Please also make sure that the exact address of the receiving institute is shown clearly on the request, together with any possible other suggestions as e.g. best routing for safe despatch.

BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS

A species earlier unknown in PNG was found between Gabam and Deri; the species was identified as Acacia pubirhachis Pedley. This brings the number of Acacia species known for Papua New Guinea to eight.

Table 1

Map 1
Map of Central locations
associated with Seed Correction areas

¹ Extracted from “Report, September – October 1986 FAO Acacia Seed Collection”, received Oct. 1987.