Geleznowia species are charismatic yellow-flowered shrubs found only in south-western Australia, where their habitats are under threat from human activity. To support their conservation, we sought to clarify how many species there are by using thousands of sequences from their genomes. We uncovered unrecognised diversity and increased the number of species in the genus from two to seven.

The World Heritage Queensland Wet Tropics support an amazing 15 endemic genera of the Gondwanan Proteaceae family, including Megahertzia from the Daintree rainforest. Megahertzia-like fossil leaves were first collected from the Anglesea coal mine (Victoria, 3000 km away!) over 30 years ago, but have never been described. New fossil studies show the sole living species of Megahertzia as the last vestige of a formerly much more widespread lineage, and underscore the imperative need for conserving Australia’s unique rainforest biota.

Macroalgae in family Characeae occur in inland waters throughout Australia. Species of Nitella (Tribe Nitelleae) that occur in Australia’s Northern Territory have been reviewed, revised and described here, resulting in 16 species for the region.