Australian Plant Society Mornington Peninsula is proud to host the 15th FJC Rogers Seminar about Epacrids, more commonly known as the Australian Heaths.

Held over 2 days this seminar will explore all things Epacrids. There will be expert speakers, plant and book sales, botanical art displays and informative excursions which will show off the local species.

What are Epacrids?

Hold onto your brains, here’s some taxonomy! In 2002, the group of plants in the family you may have known as Epacridaceae were grouped into a sub-family of the (nearly) world-wide family Ericaceae, because genetic research showed that these plants all had a common ancestor. One possible classification of the resulting heath or heather family includes 9 subfamilies, 126 genera, and about 4,000 species.

The majority of Ericaceae subfamilies and species occur outside of Australia – cranberry, blueberry, huckleberry, rhododendron (including azaleas), and various common heaths and heathers (Erica, Scottish Heath) – except that one Rhododendron species is endemic to Australia.

The FJC Rogers Seminar is focussed on one sub-family called Epacridoideae (that is, the members of the defunct family Epacridaceaea). To avoid the tongue twister, we are referring to the Australian Heaths as Epacrids.

Epacris is the largest, and probably the most familiar, of the 37 genera in the subfamily. Almost 40 species are distributed from South East Queensland down the eastern sea board of Australia to Tasmania, South Australia and across to South West Australia. The only state that misses out is the Northern Territory, for reasons that will be described at the seminar.

Epacris impressa, the Pink Heath, is the Victorian State Floral emblem and that of APS Victoria. It is fitting that one of the most extensive descriptions of Epacris was prepared and illustrated by Alice Talbot, together with the APS EpacrisStudy Group who all happened to be members of APS Maroondah - where Fred had left such a mark. The most recent leader of this study group was Gwen Elliot, (another Maroondah member), who continued to encourage the development of knowledge of this particular genus. This group was suspended in 2015.

Why Epacrids 2025?

Two general characteristics of the Epacrids are:

1) They are not show stopper plants. Their beauty is in their delicacy - tiny flowers strung in clusters from often straggly stems.

2) They are fiendishly difficult to cultivate.

This is probably why, to quote WA Herbarium’s botanist Michael Hislop, the specialist for West Australian epacrids, "The Australian epacrids have been a rather neglected group historically and certainly merit greater attention from an ecological and horticultural perspective."

APS Mornington Peninsula District Group are keen for you to help address this neglect. When you attend the seminar, on day 1 (August 2) you will hear the answers to some or all of the following questions:

How to identify a member of the Epacrids sub-family?
What is the current state of research - re-identification as a result of DNA analysis, development of keys, what is happening with (for example) Styphelia?
Where do these plants occur, what plant communities, what role do they play in these communities?
What's their conservation status, what challenges are they facing due to climate change and human activities?
How to propagate them, why are they so difficult to cultivate, any indicators that this will become more successful? Hybrids? Success and failure stories.

And on that last question, you will be given the opportunity to add to horticultural knowledge by buying the plants on sale.

You can also view and buy paintings, photos and fabricated items exhibited by Cranbourne Friends, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

On day 2 (August 3), you’ll be taken to see some epacrids of the Mornington Peninsula within their plant communities.

FJC Rogers Seminar Background

The FJC (Fred) Rogers Seminar is held every 2 years, focused on one plant group to share knowledge at all levels. Surprisingly, there is still little known about large swathes of Australian native plants. Many of the iconic books we refer to as “plant bibles” were written by a group of what we would now call citizen scientists and first appeared in the 1960’s and 70’s at a time of emerging Australian nationalism. All were fascinated by the flora about them and observed, notated and photographed on extensive family field trips. However, there seemed to be a disconnect between these enthusiastic “amateurs” and the academic world.

FJC (Fred) Rogers published “A Field Guide to Victorian Wattles” in 1968, one of the early pocketbooks that could be easily taken into the bush. This guide is now held in the Australian National Library, together with Growing Australian Native Plants (1973).

He was a passionate plantsman and inspirational educator, a leader who always shared his knowledge, organising and conducting excursions, and conducting Council of Adult Education courses on native plants.

Fred’s son, Peter, quoted from the Obituary article - “We didn’t go down to the beach, we went camping in Little Desert, the Big Desert, The Bendigo Whipstick area or anywhere that Dad needed a photograph of a special plant”.

In 1957 Arthur Swaby had an idea to create a society of “Australian Growers of Australians”. By 1959, an organisation formed called “The Society for Growing Australian Plants” (SGAP) – South East Region, which included NSW, VIC. QLD and SA. Fred was a founding member and became President in 1963.

Seven District Groups were formed during Fred’s term as President. In 1966, at a meeting in Fred’s home, “Maroondah Group” was formed with him as the inaugural President, a position he held for the next 5 years, and was made a life member in 1971.

He was instrumental in creating 2 conservation reserves in the Ringwood area, one of which bears his name. He was a keen propagator who provided and planted native plants in many schools in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, at a time when these plants were not commercially available. After moving to Vectis, near Horsham in 1977, he formed a Wimmera group of The Society of Growing Australian Plants (which became the Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc.), of which he was also made a life member. He was highly active in the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria in 1991 and awarded the Natural History Medallion for services to Australian Plants.

In 1995 Fred, together with Royce Raleigh and Paul Kennedy planned a large seminar on Hakeas. Subsequent seminars have been name in his honour. The 15th Seminar will mark 30 years of his continued legacy.