ILWS - Institute of Land, Water and Society
Researchers
Dr Geoff Burrows
BSc (Hons) PhD Qld
Senior lecturer in plant sciences
School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences
Dr Geoff Burrows, whose early research interest was in plant anatomy and native plants, spent his Honours year looking at the root anatomy of saltbushes.
"But I could see that it was unlikely that I was going to get a job as a plant anatomist so I looked for a more applied area of research," says Geoff who did his Masters with University of Qld and Queensland Forests developing a protocol for propagating the native conifer Hoop Pine with the then new technique of tissue culture.
While doing this research he noticed that the buds of the Hoop Pine formed in an unusual way and he converted to a PhD to investigate this further. He discovered a unique type of leaf axil structure, halfway between a 'blank' axil and an axil with a fully-formed axillary bud.
From 1984 to1986 Geoff was a fulltime tutor in the Botany Department at University of Sydney before joining CSU (or as it was RMIHE) in 1986 as a lecturer in the newly established amenity or environmental horticulture course.
Required to teach an Australian vegetation subject, Geoff found that in the intensively and extensively disturbed SWS of NSW even the most basic ecological information (e.g. comprehensive plant species lists) was unavailable for the few remaining areas of remnant vegetation. This was the impetus for more than 15 years of remnant vegetation studies.
From his conifer bud studies Geoff found what was usually written about eucalypt bud structure did not correlate with their pronounced ability to resprout from the stems and branches after severe fires (epicormic resprouting). With ARC funding he was able to show the eucalypts did not have buds in the outer bark (like most other trees) but had specialised bud forming cells in the inner bark where they are protected from fire by the maximum bark thickness. His findings attracted wide academic interest and general media interest.
His current and recent research projects, which reflect his research interests in "the anatomical aspects of bud development and water transport in the Wollemi Pine, epicormic strands and the evolution of postfire resprouting in eucalypts and their relatives,"
include:
- 'The anatomy of fire resistance: tracing the evolution of resprouting structures in the Myrtaceae'. Hermon Slade Foundation funded project (2005 to 2007) $85,000 over 3 years. Geoff examined the epicormic structures in a wide range of species in the Myrtaceae from sclerophyllous shrubs to rainforest trees. His aim was to determine if any other genera in the Myrtaceae have the fire dapted epicormic structures found in the eucalypts. He attempted to see if a series of developmental steps in the evolution of fire adapted epicormic structure could be traced.
- Continued studies on the Wollemi Pine, a close relative of the Hoop Pine, discovered in 1995. Since 1996 Geoff has conducted a number of studies on the bud structure, leaf anatomy and branch abscission of the Wollemi Pine.
Geoff also has a keen interest in developing materials that will assist people to develop their plant indentification skills and with the help of Kylie Kent and Scott Black has developed some innovative online tutorials and tests concerning leaf and ovary structure.