The Institute’s last public update was in May 2025, and we have published little since. The work has continued all the same. This update covers what has happened since then and where the Institute stands now. It stays general on purpose: research remains private until it is ready.
The laboratory in Cardwell
The Cardwell laboratory is run by a researcher under an Institute Laboratory Charter. Schools and other organisations have donated glassware, Petri dishes and microscopes to it, and the Institute’s Operations and Facilities team has coordinated turning those donations into a working laboratory and keeping it running day to day. Donated glassware is identified and recorded piece by piece, and all glassware joints now use one standard size.
In September 2026 Operations set up the laboratory’s first equipment register, which now lists more than 300 items, together with a consumables register. Operations also issued written bench-safety rules for the laboratory.
Field surveys in north Queensland
From January to April 2026 the team surveyed across north Queensland and recorded 21 species on iNaturalist, including Queensland kauri, native olive, austral sarsaparilla, sea almond, beach vitex and several fungi. The Botanical department has since added them to the Institute’s botanical reference library, which now holds 31 plant and fungus records with photographs. Identifications made from photographs stay marked provisional until they are confirmed.
The research library
In September 2026 the Institute’s research library was catalogued: about 900 volumes on herbal medicine, ethnobotany, pharmacopoeias and the history of plant use. The library team has also begun a set of plant dossiers, many on wet-tropics species, and an archive that keeps every version of every Institute paper.
The monograph series
AIP Monograph No. 1, a botanical profile of Abrus precatorius (rosary pea), was published in April 2025 and is being rebuilt to the current standard at the same address. AIP Monograph No. 2, on Peganum harmala (Syrian rue), was published in September 2026. Written by the Education and Research department, it is the first monograph built to the Institute’s new publishing standard: every statement is labelled with the strength of its evidence, and the monograph ends with a research agenda. Every new public post now closes by setting out where the evidence stops, and Education and Research checks the evidence and citations in every new post.
Esoteric Studies
The Esoteric Studies department has begun cataloguing the library’s alchemical, Hermetic and grimoire holdings, and has started a Grimoire Herbal series on the plants named in historical magical texts. It begins with the Picatrix (Ghayat al-Hakim), a medieval Arabic handbook of astral magic later translated into Latin, and asks how confidently each plant it names can be identified today. The series reports what the texts claim without endorsing it: ritual use is history, not clinical evidence.
JARVIS
JARVIS is a system the Institute is building in-house. Its first working part is the Institute’s site security system, and development continues in stages.
The website and blog
This month the Institute’s website and blog moved to a new home, with all existing policies, documents and monographs carried across. The team now keeps the site up to date directly and plans to publish a new blog post every week.
What’s next
Over the next six to twelve months, the Institute plans to:
- have pending plant identifications confirmed to research grade, add laboratory microscopy to specimen records and keep surveying the wet tropics around Cardwell
- set up thin-layer chromatography for routine checks that plant material is what it should be
- write laboratory operating procedures and calibrate measuring equipment
- finish rebuilding Monograph No. 1, then add new monographs in publication order
- add to the plant dossiers and publish a reading list for the monograph series
- continue the Grimoire Herbal series, one text at a time
Monograph No. 2 also sets out a research agenda: voucher specimens, reference sets for microscopy and chromatography, and ethnobotany from primary sources. These are research directions, not studies under way.
How you can support the Institute
The Institute operates on a not-for-profit basis under its constitution. It is not yet registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) and is not a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR), so donations to the Institute are not tax-deductible.
The Board is recruiting further directors, the next step towards charity registration. The Institute is also looking into grant programmes and possible research partnerships with universities; no grant applications have been made yet.
You can help by reading and sharing the weekly blog, or by contacting us, including about joining the Board.
Head of Marketing, on behalf of the Australian Institute of Pharmacognosy