Alastair Robinson
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Alastair Robinson
Alastair S. Robinson (born 1980) is a taxonomist and field botanist specialising in the carnivorous plant genus ''Nepenthes'', for which he is regarded as a world authority.Ellison, A. & Adamec, L. eds., 2017. Contributing Author Information. ''Carnivorous Plants: Physiology, ecology, and evolution''. Oxford University Press. . McPherson, S.R. 2009. ''Pitcher Plants of the Old World''. Redfern Natural History Productions Ltd., Poole. He is currently Manager Biodiversity Services at the National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, where he oversees identification botany services, the Library and Artwork components of the State Botanical Collection, and the botanical journal '' Muelleria'', a peer-reviewed scientific journal on botany published by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, for which he is Editor in Chief. In 2007, Robinson co-discovered the giant Palawan pitcher plant, '' Nepenthes attenboroughii'', for which he published the formal descript ...
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Carnivorous Plants
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants still generate some of their energy from photosynthesis. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875 Charles Darwin published '' Insectivorous Plants'', the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of painstaking research. True carnivory is believed to have evolved independently at least 12 times in five different orders of flowering plants, and is represented by more than a dozen genera. This classification includes at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey, absorbing the resulting available nutrients. Venus flytrap (''Dionaea muscipula''), pitcher ...
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Botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek word (''botanē'') meaning " pasture", " herbs" "grass", or " fodder"; is in turn derived from (), "to feed" or "to graze". Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively, with the study of these three groups of organisms remaining within the sphere of interest of the International Botanical Congress. Nowadays, botanists (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of land plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants (including approximately 369,000 species of flowering plants), and approximately 20,000 are bryophytes. Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify – and later cultivate – ed ...
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Slipper Orchid
Cypripedioideae is a subfamily of orchids commonly known as lady's slipper orchids, lady slipper orchids or slipper orchids. Cypripedioideae includes the genera ''Cypripedium, Mexipedium, Paphiopedilum, Phragmipedium'' and ''Selenipedium''. They are characterised by the slipper-shaped pouches (modified labella) of the flowers – the pouch traps insects so they are forced to climb up past the staminode, behind which they collect or deposit pollinia, thus fertilizing the flower. There are approximately 165 species in the subfamily. Description All representatives of the Cypripedioideae are perennial, herbaceous plants. The fleshy roots sometimes possess a veil. The leaves are arranged spirally or in two rows, the shoot is slender or compressed. In the bud, the leaves are rolled and the leaf blade is plikat (folded) or the leaves are folded in the bud, smooth and leathery. There is no dividing tissue between leaf and shoot. The inflorescence of the Cypripedioideae are termi ...
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Stigmatodactylus
''Stigmatodactylus'' is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It has thirteen currently recognized species (as of November 2016), native to China, Taiwan, Japan, the Himalayas, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.Pridgeon, A.M., Cribb, P.J., Chase, M.C. & Rasmussen, F.N. (2001). Orchidoideae (Part 1). Genera Orchidacearum 2: 1-416. Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford. Species list The following is a list of accepted species of ''Stigmatodactylus'' accepted by Plants of the World Online as at February 2021: * ''Stigmatodactylus aegeridantennatus'' ( N.Hallé) M.A.Clem. & D.L.Jones - New Caledonia * ''Stigmatodactylus aquamarinus'' A.S.Rob. & Gironella - Palawan (Philippines) * ''Stigmatodactylus bracteatus'' ( Rendle) M.A.Clem. & D.L.Jones - New Caledonia * ''Stigmatodactylus celebicus'' Schltr. - Sulawesi * ''Stigmatodactylus confusus'' (Guillaumin) M.A.Clem. & D.L.Jones - New Caledonia * ''Stigmatodactylus c ...
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Orchid
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. The Orchidaceae have about 28,000 currently accepted species, distributed in about 763 genera. (See ''External links'' below). The determination of which family is larger is still under debate, because verified data on the members of such enormous families are continually in flux. Regardless, the number of orchid species is nearly equal to the number of bony fishes, more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. The family encompasses about 6–11% of all species of seed plants. The largest genera are ''Bulbophyllum'' (2,000 species), ''Epidendrum'' (1,500 species), ''Dendrobium'' (1,400 species) and ''Pleurothallis'' (1,000 species). It also includes ''Vanilla'' (the genus of the ...
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Nepenthes Rajah
''Nepenthes rajah'' is a carnivorous pitcher plant species of the family Nepenthaceae. It is endemic to Mount Kinabalu and neighbouring Mount Tambuyukon in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.Clarke 1997, p. 123. ''Nepenthes rajah'' grows exclusively on serpentine substrates, particularly in areas of seeping ground water where the soil is loose and permanently moist. The species has an altitudinal range of a.s.l. and is thus considered a highland or sub-alpine plant. Due to its localised distribution, ''N. rajah'' is classified as an endangered species by the IUCN and listed on CITES Appendix I. The species was collected by Hugh Low on Mount Kinabalu in 1858, and described the next year by Joseph Dalton Hooker, who named it after James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak. Hooker called it "one of the most striking vegetable productions hither-to discovered".Hooker 1859. Since being introduced into cultivation in 1881, ''Nepenthes rajah'' has always been a much sought-after s ...
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Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and east of Sumatra. The island is politically divided among three countries: Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. In the north, the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak make up about 26% of the island. The population in Borneo is 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Additionally, the Malaysian federal territory of Labuan is situated on a small island just off the coast of Borneo. The sovereign state of Brunei, located on the north coast, comprises about 1% of Borneo's land area. A little more than half of the island is in the Northern Hemisphere, including Brunei and the Malaysian portion, while the Indonesian portion spans the Northern and Southern hemisph ...
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Common Ancestor
Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all life on Earth, according to modern evolutionary biology. Common descent is an effect of speciation, in which multiple species derive from a single ancestral population. The more recent the ancestral population two species have in common, the more closely are they related. The most recent common ancestor of all currently living organisms is the last universal ancestor, which lived about 3.9 billion years ago. The two earliest pieces of evidence for life on Earth are graphite found to be biogenic in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in western Greenland and microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. All currently living organisms on Earth shar ...
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Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republika sang Filipinas * ibg, Republika nat Filipinas * ilo, Republika ti Filipinas * ivv, Republika nu Filipinas * pam, Republika ning Filipinas * krj, Republika kang Pilipinas * mdh, Republika nu Pilipinas * mrw, Republika a Pilipinas * pag, Republika na Filipinas * xsb, Republika nin Pilipinas * sgd, Republika nan Pilipinas * tgl, Republika ng Pilipinas * tsg, Republika sin Pilipinas * war, Republika han Pilipinas * yka, Republika si Pilipinas In the recognized optional languages of the Philippines: * es, República de las Filipinas * ar, جمهورية الفلبين, Jumhūriyyat al-Filibbīn is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands t ...
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Ultramafic
Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are composed of usually greater than 90% mafic minerals (dark colored, high magnesium and iron content). The Earth's mantle is composed of ultramafic rocks. Ultrabasic is a more inclusive term that includes igneous rocks with low silica content that may not be extremely enriched in Fe and Mg, such as carbonatites and ultrapotassic igneous rocks. Intrusive ultramafic rocks Intrusive ultramafic rocks are often found in large, layered ultramafic intrusions where differentiated rock types often occur in layers. Such cumulate rock types do not represent the chemistry of the magma from which they crystallized. The ultramafic intrusives include the dunites, peridotites and pyroxenites. Other rare varieties include troctolite which has a greater percenta ...
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Paleogeography
Palaeogeography (or paleogeography) is the study of historical geography, generally physical landscapes. Palaeogeography can also include the study of human or cultural environments. When the focus is specifically on landforms, the term paleogeomorphology is sometimes used instead. Paleomagnetism, paleobiogeography, and tectonic history are among its main tools. Palaeogeography yields information that is crucial to scientific understanding in a variety of contexts. For example, palaeogeographical analysis of sedimentary basins plays a key role in the field of petroleum geology, because ancient geomorphological environments of the Earth's surface are preserved in the stratigraphic record. Palaeogeographers also study the sedimentary environment associated with fossils for clues to the evolutionary development of extinct species. Palaeogeography is furthermore crucial to the understanding of palaeoclimatology, due to the impact of the positions of continents and oceans on infl ...
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Nepenthes Attenboroughii
''Nepenthes attenboroughii'' (), or Attenborough's pitcher plant, is a montane species of carnivorous pitcher plant of the genus '' Nepenthes''. It is named after the celebrated broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough,Smyth, C. 2009Giant rat-eating nepenthes plant named after David Attenborough ''Times Online'', August 18, 2009. who is a keen enthusiast of the genus. The species is characterised by its large and distinctive bell-shaped lower and upper pitchers and narrow, upright lid. The type specimen of ''N. attenboroughii'' was collected on the summit of Mount Victoria, an ultramafic mountain in central Palawan, the Philippines. In May 2010, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University selected ''N. attenboroughii'' as one of the "top 10 new species described in 2009". The species appeared on the 2012 list of the world's 100 most threatened species compiled by the IUCN Species Survival Commission in collaboration with ...
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