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Dysoxylum Spectabile
Kohekohe (''Dysoxylum spectabile'') is a medium-sized tree in the Meliaceae family, native to New Zealand. It is found in lowland and coastal forests throughout most of the North Island and also occurs in the Marlborough Sounds in the north of the South Island. Mature trees grow up to in height, with a trunk up to a metre in diameter. A fairly close relative of true mahogany (''Swietenia''), it is also called New Zealand mahogany, because its wood is light, strong and polishes to a fine red colour. Kohekohe is notable for having characteristics normally associated with trees growing in the tropics, for example, its flowers and fruit grow directly from the trunk or branches (known as cauliflory), and it has large, glossy, pinnate leaves up to 40 cm in length. The inflorescences of kohekohe may be up to 30 cm long, and the flowers produce a strong sweet smell. The large green fruit takes around fifteen months to ripen. The fruit contains three or four cells contai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georg Forster
Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (, 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold Forster, on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. His report of that journey, ''A Voyage Round the World'', contributed significantly to the ethnology of the people of Polynesia and remains a respected work. As a result of the report, Forster, who was admitted to the Royal Society at the early age of twenty-two, came to be considered one of the founders of modern scientific travel literature. After returning to continental Europe, Forster turned toward academia. He taught natural history at the Collegium Carolinum in the Ottoneum, Kassel (1778–84), and later at the Academy of Vilna (Vilnius University) (1784–87). In 1788, he became head librarian at the University of Mainz. Most of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aril
An aril (pronounced ), also called an arillus, is a specialized outgrowth from a seed that partly or completely covers the seed. An arillode or false aril is sometimes distinguished: whereas an aril grows from the attachment point of the seed to the ovary (from the funiculus or '' hilum''), an arillode forms from a different point on the seed coat. The term "aril" is sometimes applied to any fleshy appendage of the seed in flowering plants, such as the mace of the nutmeg seed. Arils and arillodes are often edible enticements that encourage animals to transport the seed, thereby assisting in seed dispersal. Pseudarils are aril-like structures commonly found on the pyrenes of Burseraceae species that develop from the mesocarp of the ovary. The fleshy, edible pericarp splits neatly in two halves, then falling away or being eaten to reveal a brightly coloured pseudaril around the black seed. The aril may create a fruit-like structure, called (among other names) a ''false fruit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trees Of Mild Maritime Climate
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. In wider definitions, the taller palms, tree ferns, bananas, and bamboos are also trees. Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years. It is estimated that there are some three trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk. This trunk typically c ... [...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] |
Cauliflory
Cauliflory is a botanical term referring to plants that flower and fruit from their main stems or woody trunks, rather than from new growth and shoots. This can allow trees to be pollinated or have their seeds dispersed by animals that climb on trunks and sturdy limbs to feed on the nectar and fruits. Plants may instead have fruit which drop from the canopy and ripen only after they reach the ground, an alternative "strategy" to cauliflory. (Note that the concept of cauliflory includes that of ramiflory.) Families, genera and (some) species (list incomplete) *Moraceae **''Ficus'': '' F. racemosa'' (cluster fig), '' F. sansibarica'' (knobby fig), '' F. sur'' (Cape fig), '' F. sycomorus'' (sycamore fig) **''Artocarpus'': '' A. heterophyllus'' (jackfruit), '' A. integer'' (chempedak), '' A. altilis'' (breadfruit) *Myrtaceae **''Syzygium'': '' S. moorei'', '' S. cormiflorum'' **''Plinia'': '' P. cauliflora'' *Malvaceae **''Theobroma'': '' T. cacao'' (cacao), '' T. grandiflorum'' (c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the world; GBIF's information architecture makes these data accessible and searchable through a single portal. Data available through the GBIF portal are primarily distribution data on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes for the world, and scientific names data. The mission of the GBIF is to facilitate free and open access to biodiversity data worldwide to underpin sustainable development. Priorities, with an emphasis on promoting participation and working through partners, include mobilising biodiversity data, developing protocols and standards to ensure scientific integrity and interoperability, building an informatics architecture to allow the interlinking of diverse data types from disparate sources, promoting capacity building and cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kapiti Island
Kapiti Island () is an island about off the west coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand. It is long, running southwest/northeast, and roughly wide, being more or less rectangular in shape, and has an area of . Its name has been used since 1989 by the Kapiti Coast District Council, which includes towns such as Paekakariki, Raumati South, Paraparaumu and Waikanae. The island is separated from the North Island by the Rauoterangi Channel. The highest point on the island is Tūteremoana, . The seaward (west) side of the island is particularly rocky and has high cliffs, some hundreds of metres high, that drop straight into the sea. The cliffs are subject to very strong prevailing westerly winds and the scrubby vegetation that grows there is low and stunted by the harsh environmental conditions. A cross-section of the island would show almost a right-angled triangle, revealing its origins from lying on a fault line (part of the same ridge as the Tararua Range). The island's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbal Tonic
In herbal medicine, an herbal tonic (also tonic herbs, tonic herbalism) is used to help restore, tone and invigorate systems in the body or to promote general health and well-being. An herbal tonic is a solution or other preparation made from a specially selected assortment of plants known as herbs. They are steeped in water and drunk either hot or cool. Herbal tonics are believed to have healing properties ranging from relieving muscle and joint pain and extend as far as inhibiting some cancers. Herbal tonics can be dated as far back as 4,000 years ago – as a practice thought to have originated under the sphere of traditional Chinese Medicine. They were also used in Ayurvedic and Unani practices as well as in Native America. Initially, the use of herbal tonics was embedded within these traditional medicinal practices and cultures. Today, herbal tonics are consumed globally and are used as a general resource in maintaining well-being. They are found in not only hospitals and ph ... [...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] |
Common Brushtail Possum In New Zealand
The common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula'') was introduced from Australia to New Zealand, where it has become a major agricultural and conservation pest. (In Māori it is called paihamu, a transliteration of "possum".) Introduction by European settlers European settlers aiming to establish a wild source for food and fibre and fur pelts for clothing introduced the common brushtail possum from Australia (from Victorian and Tasmanian populations) to New Zealand in the 1850s. Even as late as 1936 the government refused Taranaki Acclimatisation Society permission to introduce a new strain of possums and in 1937 the Waitaki Acclimatisation Society proposed a closed season to allow numbers to recover. The earliest introduction may have been at Riverton/Aparima in 1840. An article in Nature in 1870 warned of the dangers, as did farmers and fruit growers, but some academics supported introduction and the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts was still introducing poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed on the axis of a plant. The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes. One can also define an inflorescence as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern. The stem holding the whole inflorescence is called a peduncle. The major axis (incorrectly referred to as the main stem) above the peduncle bearing the flowers or secondary branches is called the rachis. The stalk of each flower in the inflorescence is called a pedicel. A flower that is not part of an inflorescence is called a solitary flower and its stalk is al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, and was awarded the highest honours of British science. Biography Early years Hooker was born in Halesworth, Suffolk, England. He was the second son of the famous botanist Sir William Jackson Hooker, Regius Professor of Botany, and Maria Sarah Turner, eldest daughter of the banker Dawson Turner and sister-in-law of Francis Palgrave. From age seven, Hooker attended his father's lectures at Glasgow University, taking an early interest in plant distribution and the voyages of explorers like Captain James Cook. He was educated at the Glasgow High School and went on to study medicine at Glasgow University, graduating M.D. in 1839. This degree qualified him for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
