Persoonia hirsuta subsp. evoluta

Thanks for posting this discovery. It is important that it is entered into BioNet Atlas, as that is the primary source (or often the only source) used in ecological assessments. If you are able to enter it to Atlas, great. Otherwise, I can do it on your behalf if you message me through this site/app. I am a DPE registered Threatened Species Expert for this plant. I can ensure the occurrence is brought to the attention of relevant Council personnel.

@ESP Thanks so much that would be great. I have also been in contact with another person from the DPE re this. Can I privately message you or email? There are over 50 plants in one area I have found so far. Re BioNet I am also aware of this but I am not sure if there is a citizen science portal for contributing, let me know. I have also uploaded to ALA via iNaturalist and linked it the UNSW Environmental Recovery Project.

Anyone can load records to BioNet Atlas but you need to register and either use the manual entry process (which is clunky) or use the data upload spreadsheet (fairly easy but because of staff shortages, it can take months for the data to appear if using this method). I'm at manager@ecologicalsurveys.net and you can email me the details so that I can get them into BioNet. Thanks for letting DPE know, but in my experience, they are often understaffed such that they may not be able to do anything about the situation. However, if you have got lucky and found a DPE officer with the time and interest to help, they could put the records in Atlas for you instead.

ALA and iNaturalist can help but at least with the latter, there can be an issue of disclosing the exact location on a public app, which is best avoided. NaturMapr and BioNet Atlas (and ideally ALA) will generalise any co-ords that you supply to obscure the location from public view. Only people with internal license access can see the original co-ords. When providing a location description for the sightings, it is important not to provide sufficient detail that would enable them to be found by anyone with access to public records, even when the co-ords are generalised to the nearest km. This sounds a bit daft, as normally we would want a description to be as exact as possible, but for species such as this, it is best to be relatively vague in the text.

This species is categorised as Sensitive by DPE because of the risk that it can be targeted for removal by people who have an economic or other interest in deleting it. There are 'developers' and others who will remove threatened plants if they perceive that their presence would lower a property's economic value or constrain subdivision potential, etc.

@ESP just sent you a quick email

@michaelb not sure what happened with these two species but would be great if you could merge/fix these, thanks
Persoonia hirsuta subsp. evoluta and https://southern-highlands.naturemapr.org/species/15306

The taxonomy of P hirsuta is under review. Some recognise the subspecies, some don’t, perhaps because they intergrade a lot. Another unpublished subspecies is said to be made a new species. Nathan Emery is the authority on such things.