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Coastal Maire
''Nestegis apetala'' is a small tree native to northern New Zealand and to Norfolk Island. The common names in New Zealand are coastal maire or broad-leaved maire. On Norfolk Island, the common name is ironwood. The species name ''apetala'' refers to the lack of petals on the flowers. Distribution In New Zealand ''N. apetala'' grows on the North Island mainland on rocky headlands around Whangarei Heads and at the Bay of Islands. It is also found on northern offshore islands including the Hen and Chickens Islands, Great Barrier Island, Little Barrier Island, and the Poor Knights Islands. It tends to be rare on islands with rats. On Norfolk Island, it is common on Mt Pitt, and in forested areas generally, but is less common elsewhere. Description ''Nestegis apetala'' is shrub or tree up to 6 m tall, with smooth, shiny dark green leaves 4.5 to 12 cm long and 1.5 to 4 cm wide. Juvenile leaves are larger, up to 14 cm long by 8.5 cm wide. The leaves are oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Vahl
Martin Henrichsen Vahl (10 October 1749 – 24 December 1804) was a Danish-Norwegian botanist, herbalist and zoologist. Biography Martin Vahl was born in Bergen, Norway and attended Bergen Cathedral School. He studied botany at the University of Copenhagen and at Uppsala University under Carl Linnaeus. He edited ''Flora Danica'' fasc. XVI-XXI (1787–1799), ''Symbolæ Botanicæ'' I-III (1790–1794), ''Eclogæ Americanæ'' I-IV (1796–1807) and ''Enumeratio Plantarum'' I-II (1804–1805). He lectured at the University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden from 1779 to 1782. Vahl made several research trips in Europe and North Africa between 1783 and 1788. He became professor at the Society for Natural History at the University of Copenhagen in 1786 and was a full professor of botany from 1801 to his death. In 1792, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died in Copenhagen, Denmark at age 55. His son Jens Vahl also became a botanist. Authorit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of Norfolk Island
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] |
Trees Of New Zealand
New Zealand's long geological isolation means that most of its flora is unique, with many durable hard woods. There is a wide variety of native trees, adapted to all the various micro-climates in New Zealand. The native bush (forest) ranges from the subtropical kauri forests of the northern North Island, temperate rainforests of the West Coast, the alpine forests of the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana and Fiordland to the coastal forests of the Abel Tasman National Park and the Catlins. In the early period of British colonisation, many New Zealand trees were known by names derived from the names of unrelated European trees, but more recently the trend has been to adopt the native Māori language names into English. For a listing in order of Māori name, with species names for most, see the ''Flora of New Zealand'' list overnacular names The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network has published a list of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants including all 574 native tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nestegis
''Nestegis'' is a genus of flowering plant in the olive family, Oleaceae. There are five currently accepted species in the genus: three species are endemic to New Zealand, while one can be found on New Zealand and Norfolk Island. Another is restricted to Hawaii. Some species of the related genus ''Osmanthus'' are sometimes included here.Shi-Quan Guo, Min Xiong, Chun-Feng Ji, Zhi-Rong Zhang, De-Zhu Li and Zhi-Yong Zhang, Molecular phylogenetic reconstruction of ''Osmanthus'' Lour. (Oleaceae) and related genera based on three chloroplast intergenic spacers, Plant Syst Evol (2011) 294:57–64 Etymology The name ''Nestegis'' is of unknown origin, since the author Constantine Samuel Rafinesque often invented generic names from scratch. It may have no meaning at all or it may derive from Greek ''stegos'' (στέγος) meaning "cover" in allusion to the lack of a corolla in the type species, ''Nestegis apetala''. Description ''Nestegis'' species are evergreen trees or shrubs. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Māori People
The Māori (, ) are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed their own distinctive culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands, where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori. Initial contact between Māori and Europeans, starting in the 18th century, ranged from beneficial trade to lethal violence; Māori actively adopted many technologies from the newcomers. With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the two cultures coexisted for a generation. Rising tensions over disputed land sales led to conflict in the 1860s, and massive land confiscations, to which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific Rat
The Polynesian rat, Pacific rat or little rat (''Rattus exulans''), known to the Māori as ''kiore'', is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the brown rat and black rat. The Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asia, and like its relatives has become widespread, migrating to most of Polynesia, including New Zealand, Easter Island, and Hawaii. It shares high adaptability with other rat species extending to many environments, from grasslands to forests. It is also closely associated with humans, who provide easy access to food. It has become a major pest in most areas of its distribution. Description The Polynesian rat is similar in appearance to other rats, such as the black rat and the brown rat. It has large, round ears, a pointed snout, black/brown hair with a lighter belly, and comparatively small feet. It has a thin, long body, reaching up to in length from the nose to the base of the tail, making it slightly smaller than other human-associated ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Knights Islands
The Poor Knights Islands (Māori: ''Tawhiti Rahi)'' are a group of islands off the east coast of the Northland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. They lie to the northeast of Whangarei, and offshore halfway between Bream Head and Cape Brett. Uninhabited since the 1820s, they are a nature reserve and popular underwater diving spot, with boat tours typically departing from Tutukaka. The Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve surrounds the island. Beaglehole (1955) comments that the origin of the island name is not clear, and speculates that the name could be related to the Poor Knights of Windsor, or that the islands were named for their resemblance to Poor Knight's Pudding, a bread-based dish topped with egg and fried, popular at the time of discovery by Europeans. Description The chain consists of two large islands (Tawhiti Rahi, the larger at , and Aorangi () to the south), and several smaller islands. Aorangaia and Archway Island lie to the southwest of Aor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering . New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Barrier Island
Little Barrier Island, or Hauturu in Māori language (the official Māori title is ''Te Hauturu-o-Toi''), lies off the northeastern coast of New Zealand's North Island. Located to the north of Auckland, the island is separated from the mainland to the west by Jellicoe Channel, and from the larger Great Barrier Island to the east by Cradock Channel. The two aptly named islands shelter the Hauraki Gulf from many of the storms of the Pacific Ocean. Settled by the Māori between 1350 and 1650, the island was occupied by them until the New Zealand government declared the island a wildlife sanctuary in 1897. Since the island came under control of the government, it has been under limited access, with only a few rangers living on the island. In the Māori language, the name of the island name means "the resting place of lingering breezes". Along with its larger neighbour Great Barrier, it was given its English name by Captain James Cook in 1769. The island is a nature sanctuary whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Barrier Island
Great Barrier Island ( mi, Aotea) lies in the outer Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, north-east of central Auckland. With an area of it is the sixth-largest island of New Zealand and fourth-largest in the main chain. Its highest point, Mount Hobson, is above sea level.Great Barrier Island Aotea page on the DOC website (from the . Accessed 2008-06-04.) The is the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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