Botanical exploration of Australia's tropical mountains: how the hunt for Australian Rhododendrons turned into a major win for conservation in North Queensland

[Extract] Over the last two years, the Australian Rhododendron Society together with the Ian Potter Foundation, has sponsored a series of expeditions to the high mountains of QLD's Wet Tropics. The expeditions, conducted by the Australian Tropical Herbarium (ATH), have had their core aim the establishment of the most extensive and carefully provenanced living collection of Australian Rhododendrons. But the expeditions have provided a unique opportunity for additional survey and research in the rarely visited tropical mountain habitats of far north Queensland. With the funding provided, they were able to address a much larger and more significant research question: what is the extinction risk to Australia's unique tropical mountain flora from climate change, and are there measures to mitigate these risks