New plant species discovered in Coffs Harbour after forty years in preservation Coffs Coast Coffs Coast - popup ad by News Of The Area - Modern Media - February 14, 2025 The new species of mintbush, ‘Prostanthera floydii’, discovered in Coffs Harbour. HAVING lain deep in the vaults of the National Herbarium of NSW unidentified for more than 40 years, an aged specimen found in Coffs Harbour in the early 1970s has finally been described and catalogued as a new species of mintbush. A paper recently published in scientific journal ‘Telopea’ identifies the new species as “Prostanthera floydii”, honouring the late Coffs Harbour botanist Alex Floyd OAM, who first collected the species in 1980. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone us – (02) 4981 8882. Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au Found in the Coffs Harbour hinterland, the new species belongs to the ‘mint family’, which includes most culinary herbs like rosemary and thyme. The research and identification required local field work and cultivation of the plant at the herbarium. “It’s a really lovely species when you look at it in the wild,” said Trevor Wilson, Systematic Botanist at Botanic Gardens of Sydney. “We’ve only seen it flattened as a preserved specimen, but when you look at it growing, it has enormous flowers which makes it quite striking. “It doesn’t have the same strong smell as other species in the ‘mint family’, but that does not exclude it from having compounds useful for other things like medicine. “It’s an untapped resource.” Dr Wilson, the lead author of the paper, said Prostanthera floydii will likely be listed as threatened in NSW and its re-discovery greatly improves its conservation chances. “It’s a big win for biodiversity because it is quite different from other species we know; we’ve recognised there’s even more diversity of the mintbush genus so I’m excited,” he said. “Broadly speaking, preserving a greater amount of biodiversity means that we have more resilient systems to stand the changing climate.” With more than 1.4 million plant specimens stored at the National Herbarium of NSW, Dr Wilson said it’s likely there are many more species stored away without a name or that have been wrongly identified. “These plants give us insight into what’s happened in the past and that allows us to project in the future about how we can help ourselves and make the world a better place.” Often described as a ‘museum for plants’, an herbarium is a research collection of preserved plants stored, catalogued, and arranged systematically for study. Herbariums act as botanical safehouses that protect plants against extinction and are critical for understanding our biodiversity and how we can conserve it. By Andrea FERRARI The new species of mintbush is now being cultivated.
