2026 Meetings

BotSoc meetings are usually held at 7.30 pm on the third Monday of each month at Victoria University, Wellington, Lecturer Theatre M101, ground floor Murphy Building, west side of Kelburn Parade.   Enter building off Kelburn Parade about 20m below pedestrian overbridge.   Please note that the doors of the Murphy Building and lecture theatre M101 open for evening meetings at 7 p.m. to allow time for members to socialise before the meeting begins.

Non-members are welcome to come to our evening meetings.

Click here to find out how to get there by public transport

To Help raise funds for BotSoc’s Jubilee Award Fund members are encouraged to bring named seedlings/cuttings for sale at each evening meeting.

How to join a ZOOM meeting option
1.   Meet zoom URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89547154619?pwd=bE0zRXRWSXBBUkVoUjdPcElJNXlJUT09
Meeting ID: 895 4715 4619
Passcode: 857939
2.   Follow the prompt to open link (or Download the ZOOM app. if needed).   The app. should automatically open and take you to the meeting.
Please note:
•   When you join the meeting, your microphone will be automatically muted.   This is so no one accidentally interrupts the speaker.   If you’re not speaking, please keep your microphone muted, so accidental background noise and playback doesn’t disrupt the meeting.
•   You can turn the video on if you like or leave it off.

On the meeting night – Please ensure you have connected to the meeting well before 7.30pm, when the meeting proper begins.

2026 Programme

Monday 16 February 2026:   Evening meeting – Conservation status assessment of indigenous vascular plants in the Wellington region

Speaker:   Philippa Crisp.   Over the past year, a review of the conservation status of over 1,000 taxa in the Wellington region has been completed by an expert panel.   More than 200 taxa were identified as being Regionally Threatened (Regionally Critical, Endangered or Vulnerable), with a large number (120 taxa) assessed as Data Deficient.   It is hoped that the publication of the new conservation status list will act to drive field surveys that will add data and improve knowledge of regional indigenous flora.


Monday 16 March 2026:   Evening meeting – Plants of place – mana whenua connection to whakapapa and identity

Speaker:   Maria Rodgers, PhD candidate and teaching fellow.   Maria studies and teaches landscape architecture at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.   In her teaching and research she seeks to learn more and share what plants can do in our urban public space.   She will speak about how the benefits of having plants that were naturally occurring in the past in our urban public spaces can go beyond human and ecological wellbeing, place identity, and climate benefits, to contribute to decolonisation and to justice.


Monday 20 April 2026:   Evening meeting – A mycology of New Zealand in 10 fungi

Speaker:   Dr Geoff Ridley.   Fungi are often overlooked.   Most people only become aware of them when there is a problem, the bathroom ceiling goes mouldy, the roses need spraying because of the black spot, mushrooms sprout all over the lawn.   The bigger role that fungi play in our lives is missed.   This is the story of ten little-known fungi that are important biologically, culturally, historically, and economically in Aotearoa.   Geoff Ridley is a mycologist who studied the larger fungi in the Ōrongorongo Valley for his PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, and as a forest mycologist and pathologist at the Forest Research Institute in Rotorua.   He currently works in the nationally significant collections of fungi held by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research.   His personal interest is in discovering the fungi of the Kaiwharawhara Valley in Wellington.   He is a trustee on the Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush Trust.


Monday 18 May 2026:   Evening meeting – Members’ evening

Share a pre-meeting bring-your-own supper: a flask of hot drink, cup and a small plate of ‘nibbles’. Then listen to our speakers — limit 10 minutes / person.   For a gold-coin koha, or even ‘folding money’, buy one or more of the books we put on display, and help build up the Jubilee Award Fund which supports research on NZ plants.   Room opens at 7 p.m.

Bring:
•   your botanical slides and photographs taken on BotSoc trips.   Slides on a USB stick – limit 20 / person;
•   your favourite botanical readings, your paintings;
•   any spare botanical or other natural-history books you have and don’t want any more to have them auctioned.   Take them home if they don’t sell;
•   plant specimens to sell or to discuss;
•   botanical art – paintings, drawings, ceramics – to add to a memorable evening.