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Colobanthus Muscoides
''Colobanthus muscoides'' is a low-growing, moss-like flowering cushion plant in the family Caryophyllaceae, found on islands in the south-western Pacific Ocean, especially in the subantarctic region. The specific epithet comes from the Latin ''muscus'' (moss) and ''-oides'' (resembling), with reference to its growth habit. Description ''Colobanthus muscoides'' is a perennial herb that forms a dense mat or cushion up to 250 mm thick and sometimes up to several metres across. The slender, freely branching stems have adventitious roots. The leaves are linear and fleshy, 3–5 mm long and 0.8–1 mm wide. The flowers occur at the ends of short shoots in the upper leaf axils, with both flowers and fruits overtopped by the leaves. The cushion form is structured by the densely packed roots, stems and persistent leaf sheaths. The plant flowers from September to March, and fruits from October to May. Distribution and habitat The plant is found on New Zealand's Chath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disphyma Papillatum
''Disphyma papillatum'', commonly known as Chatham Island ice plant, is a species of flowering plant in the family Aizoaceae and is endemic to the Chatham Islands of New Zealand. It is a succulent, prostrate herb with flattened, pimply, trailing stems, leaves that are triangular in cross-section, and white to pink, dark blue or purple daisy-like flowers. Description ''Disphyma papillatum'' is a succulent, prostrate herb with pimply, two-angled, trailing stems rooting at the nodes, up to long, the internodes mostly long. The leaves are arranged in pairs, stem-clasping with their bases joined, each leaf triangular in cross-section, mostly long and wide, tapering towards the tip. The flowers are superficially daisy-like, in diameter on a pimply pedicel long with five sepals at the base. The petals are white, pink, dark blue or purple in three to five rows, each petal long and wide. There are many stamens with yellow anthers and five or six styles. Flowering occurs from Nov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snares Islands / Tini Heke
The Snares Islands / Tini Heke, known colloquially as The Snares, is a group of uninhabited islands lying about 200 km south of New Zealand's South Island and to the south-southwest of Stewart Island / Rakiura. The Snares consist of the main North East Island and the smaller Broughton Island as well as the Western Chain Islands some to the west-southwest. Collectively, the Snares have a total land area of . The islands are listed with the New Zealand Outlying Islands. The islands are an immediate part of New Zealand, not part of any region or district, but instead ''Area Outside Territorial Authority'', like all the other outlying islands except the Solander Islands. History The island group was first sighted by Europeans on 23 November 1791 independently by the two ships HMS ''Discovery'' under Captain George Vancouver, and HMS ''Chatham'', commanded by Lieutenant William R. Broughton, both of the Vancouver Expedition. Vancouver named the islands "The Snares" b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of The Campbell Islands
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) was first made by Jules Thurmann (1849). Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately.Thurmann, J. (1849). ''Essai de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of The Auckland Islands
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) was first made by Jules Thurmann (1849). Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately.Thurmann, J. (1849). ''Essai de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of The Chatham Islands
The flora of the Chatham Islands consists of around 388 terrestrial plant species, of which 47 are endemic. The Chatham Islands make up the Chatham floristic province of the Neozeylandic Region of the Antarctic Kingdom. The flora of the Chatham Islands include: * '' Phormium chathams'' (Chatham Island flax) * ''Myosotidium hortensia'' (Chatham Islands forget-me-not) * '' Aciphylla dieffenbachii'' (soft speargrass) * '' Astelia chathamica'' (Chatham Islands kakaha) * '' Brachyglottis huntii'' (rautini) * '' Coprosma chathamica'' (Chatham Islands Karamu) * ''Dracophyllum arboreum'' (tarahinau) * '' Dracophyllum scoparium'' (swamp heath) * ''Drosera binata'' (fork leaved sundew) * '' Embergeria grandifolia'' (giant sowthistle) * '' Geranium traversii'' (Chatham Islands geranium) * ''Lepidium oleraceum'' (Cook's scurvy grass) * ''Leptinella featherstonii'' (button daisy) * '' Linum monogynum'' var. ''chathamicum'' (linen flax) * '' Hebe chathamica'' * '' Hebe dieffenbachii'' * ''O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colobanthus
''Colobanthus'' is a large genus of small, cushion-like herbaceous plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, sometimes known as "pearlworts", a name they share with plants of the related genus ''Sagina''. ''C. quitensis'' is the world's southernmost dicot, and one of only two native extant flowering plants of Antarctica. Selected species * '' Colobanthus acicularis'' Hook. f. * '' Colobanthus affinis'' (Hook) Hook. f. * '' Colobanthus apetalus'' (Labill.) Druce synonym = ''Spergula apetala'' * '' Colobanthus bolivianus'' Pax * '' Colobanthus brevisepalus'' Kirk * '' Colobanthus buchananii'' Kirk * '' Colobanthus caespitosus'' Colenso * '' Colobanthus canaliculatus'' Kirk * '' Colobanthus curtisiae'' J.G. West * '' Colobanthus diffusus'' Hook. f. * '' Colobanthus hookeri'' Cheeseman * '' Colobanthus kerguelensis'' Hook. f. * '' Colobanthus lycopodoides'' Griseb. * '' Colobanthus masonae'' L.B. Moore * '' Colobanthus monticola'' Petrie * '' Colobanthus muelleri'' Kirk = ''C. billa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Spray
Sea spray are aerosol particles formed from the ocean, mostly by ejection into Earth's atmosphere by bursting bubbles at the air-sea interface. Sea spray contains both organic matter and inorganic salts that form sea salt aerosol (SSA). SSA has the ability to form cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and remove anthropogenic aerosol pollutants from the atmosphere. Coarse sea spray has also been found to inhibit the development of lightning in storm clouds. Sea spray is directly (and indirectly, through SSA) responsible for a significant degree of the heat and moisture fluxes between the atmosphere and the ocean, affecting global climate patterns and tropical storm intensity. Sea spray also influences plant growth and species distribution in coastal ecosystems and increases corrosion of building materials in coastal areas. Generation Formation When wind, whitecaps, and breaking waves mix air into the sea surface, the air regroups to form bubbles, floats to the surface, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e., a soil containing more than 85 percent sand-sized particles by mass. The composition of sand varies, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide, or SiO2), usually in the form of quartz. Calcium carbonate is the second most common type of sand, for example, aragonite, which has mostly been created, over the past 500million years, by various forms of life, like coral and shellfish. For example, it is the primary form of sand apparent in areas where reefs have dominated the ecosystem for millions of years like the Caribbean. Somewhat more rarely, sand may be composed of calciu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's outer solid layer, the crust, and most of its interior, except for the liquid outer core and pockets of magma in the asthenosphere. The study of rocks involves multiple subdisciplines of geology, including petrology and mineralogy. It may be limited to rocks found on Earth, or it may include planetary geology that studies the rocks of other celestial objects. Rocks are usually grouped into three main groups: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks are formed when magma cools in the Earth's crust, or lava cools on the ground surface or the seabed. Sedimentary rocks are formed by diagenesis and lithification of sediments, which in turn are formed by the weathering, transport, and deposition of existing ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peat
Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet, because peatland plants capture carbon dioxide (CO2) naturally released from the peat, maintaining an equilibrium. In natural peatlands, the "annual rate of biomass production is greater than the rate of decomposition", but it takes "thousands of years for peatlands to develop the deposits of , which is the average depth of the boreal orthernpeatlands", which store around 415 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon (about 46 times 2019 global CO2 emissions). Globally, peat stores up to 550 Gt of carbon, 42% of all soil carbon, which exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types, including the world's forests, although it covers just 3% of the land's surface. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plant Community
A plant community is a collection or association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The components of each plant community are influenced by soil type, topography, climate and human disturbance. In many cases there are several soil types present within a given plant community. This is because the soil type within an area is influenced by two factors, the rate at which water infiltrates or exits (via evapotranspiration) the soil, as well as the rate at which organic matter (any carbon-based compound within the environment, such as decaying plant matter) enters or decays from the soil. Plant communities are studied substantially by ecologists, due to providing information on the effects of dispersal, tolerance to environmental conditions, and response to disturbance of a variety of plant species, information valuable to the comprehension of various plant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island is an island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. Regionally part of Oceania and politically a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1900, it became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. It was a part of Esperance Municipality until 1993, when the municipality was merged with other municipalities to form Huon Valley Council. The island is home to the entire royal penguin population during their annual nesting season. Ecologically, the island is part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion. Since 1948, the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) has maintained a permanent base, the Macquarie Island Station, on the isthmus at the northern end of the island at the foot of Wireless Hill. The population of the base, constituting the island's only human inhabitants, usually varies from 20 to 40 people over the year. A heliport is located nearby. In Septemb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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