Future Events
Talks are held in the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the old Captain Cook Hotel. This is where we used to meet pre-covid. Please use the main entrance of the Benham Building to enter and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Room 215, located on the second floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open. Zoom links for the talks are sent to members, join the BSO here.
Trips leave from the Department of Botany car park.
Talk / Seminar on Wednesday 10th of June 2026, 05:20 PM (2 weeks from now)
Contact: Jo Sinclair
Please consider joining the committee.
The photographic competition is a popular and eagerly anticipated event for anyone interested in botanical photography. Enter your best photos and learn what makes a good photograph and how to improve your photographic skills from our panel of expert judges. Your photographs may be chosen for the BSO Calendar so this is your opportunity to have one month of fame. Start organising your entries now and don’t wait until the last minute.
Field Trip on Saturday 13th of June 2026, 09:00 AM (2 weeks from now)
Contact: Gretchen Brownstein
This is an out/back walk from the back of Sawyers Bay to Mt Cargill Road (total elevation gain of 330m over 3kms, if you go all the way). While primarily through second growth forest, large podocarps can be spotted. This classic damp Dunedin gully also holds numerous ferns, lichens, and bryophytes. Bring, a lunch, water bottle, warm clothes and wear sturdy shoes. Meet 9:00am at the Botany Department to carpool, return 2pm. Leader Gretchen Brownstein 021 065 8497
Talk / Seminar on Wednesday 8th of July 2026, 05:20 PM (1 month from now)
Contact: Lydia Turley
Speaker: Kelly Phillips.
"Biological Diversity on Whenua Hou" will be about the important relationship between the fruiting of rimu trees and kakapo reproduction, megaflora species, introduced plants brought by early settlers and the variety of orchids and fungi that occur there.
Talk / Seminar on Wednesday 12th of August 2026, 05:20 PM (2 months from now)
Contact: Angela Brandt
Speaker: Phil Garnock-Jones.
New Zealand flowers are often described as small, plain, and simple, but our flowers have some unusual features too and there is substantial flower variation within large clades like Veronica sect. Hebe, Myosotis, and Pittosporum. Phil will show and talk about some of the flowers he studied and photographed for his book "He Puāwai – a Natural History of New Zealand Flowers" (2025), such as hutu (Ascarina lucida), hangehange (Geniostoma ligustrifolium) and tawa (Beilschmiedia tawa). He will also include some Otago examples and some flowers studied by Otago botanists.