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Leucospermum Winteri
''Leucospermum winteri'' is an evergreen, rounded shrub up to tall in the family Proteaceae. Its slightly smelling flower heads can be found between July and December, and are pollinated by insects such as flies and bees. About two months after flowering the fruits are ripe and fall to the ground. Here, these are gathered by native ants that carry them to their underground nests, where the seeds remain safe until overhead fire and removal of the biomass trigger gemination. The plants of this species do not survive the fire that occurs naturally in its fynbos habitat. This species is an endemic of the Langkloof between the Gourits River Valley and Garcia's Pass in the Langeberg, where it occurs on the ridges at elevation. Although only a few hundred plants are known, the population is stable, so the species is only regarded near threatened. It is called Riversdale pincushion in English. Description ''Leucospermum winteri'' is a small, evergreen, rounded shrub of about high and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Patrick Rourke
John Patrick Rourke FMLS (born 26 March 1942, in Cape Town) is a South African botanist, who worked at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and became curator of the Compton Herbarium. He is a specialist in the flora of the Cape Floristic Region, in particular the family Proteaceae. Career Rourke studied at the University of Cape Town from 1960 to 1970, where he obtained his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. He started working at Kirstenbosch from 1966, and succeeded Winsome Fanny Barker as curator of the Compton Herbarium in 1972. He published several revisions of Proteacean genera including ''Leucadendron'', ''Leucospermum'', ''Mimetes'', ''Vexatorella'', '' Sorocephalus'' and '' Spatalla''. During his career he collected approximately 2000 specimens of flora from the southwestern and southern Cape, Namaqualand and eastern Transvaal. In 1997 he was made foreign member of the Linnean Society of London. In 2003 Rourke was awarded the "Gold medal for Lifetime Preservation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Receptacle (botany)
In botany, the receptacle refers to vegetative tissues near the end of reproductive stems that are situated below or encase the reproductive organs. Angiosperms In angiosperms, the receptacle or torus (an older term is thalamus, as in Thalamiflorae) is the thickened part of a stem (pedicel) from which the flower organs grow. In some accessory fruits, for example the pome and strawberry, the receptacle gives rise to the edible part of the fruit. The fruit of ''Rubus'' species is a cluster of drupelets on top of a conical receptacle. When a raspberry is picked, the receptacle separates from the fruit, but in blackberries, it remains attached to the fruit. — In the Daisy family (Compositae or Asteraceae), small individual flowers are arranged on a round or dome-like structure that is also called receptacle. Algae and bryophyta In phycology, receptacles occur at the ends of branches of algae mainly in the brown algae or Heterokontophyta in the Order Fucales. They are spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasive Species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native species that become harmful to their native environment after human alterations to its food webfor example the purple sea urchin (''Strongylocentrotus purpuratus'') which has decimated kelp forests along the northern California coast due to overharvesting of its natural predator, the California sea otter (''Enhydra lutris''). Since the 20th century, invasive species have become a serious economic, social, and environmental threat. Invasion of long-established ecosystems by organisms is a natural phenomenon, but human-facilitated introductions have greatly increased the rate, scale, and geographic range of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afforestation
Afforestation is the establishment of a forest or stand of trees (forestation) in an area where there was no previous tree cover. Many government and non-governmental organizations directly engage in afforestation programs to create forests and increase carbon capture. Afforestation is an increasingly sought-after method to fight climate concerns, as it is known to increase the soil quality and organic carbon levels into the soil, avoiding desertification. Afforestation is mainly done for conservational and commercial purposes. # The rate of net forest loss decreased substantially over the period 1990–2020 due to a reduction in deforestation in some countries, plus increases in forest area in others through afforestation and the natural expansion of forests. A 2019 study of the global potential for tree restoration showed that there is space for at least 9 million km2 of new forests worldwide, which is a 25% increase from current conditions. This forested area could store up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leucospermum
''Leucospermum'' is a genus of evergreen upright, sometimes creeping shrubs that is assigned to the Proteaceae, with currently forty-eight known species. Almost all species are easily recognised as ''Leucospermum'' because of the long protruding styles with a thickened pollen-presenter, which jointly give the flower head the appearance of a pincushion, its common name. Pincushions can be found in South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The shrubs mostly have a single stem at their base, but some species sprout from an underground rootstock, from which the plant can regrow after fire has killed the above ground biomass. In a larger group of species, specimens are killed by fire, and their survival depends on the seeds. In all species, seeds are collected by ants, which take them to their underground nests to feed on their ant breads, a seed dispersal strategy known as myrmecochory. This ensures that the seeds do not burn, so new plants can grow from them. ''Leucospermum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Section (botany)
In botany, a section ( la, sectio) is a taxonomic rank below the genus, but above the species. The subgenus, if present, is higher than the section, and the rank of series, if present, is below the section. Sections may in turn be divided into subsections.Article 4 in Sections are typically used to help organise very large genera, which may have hundreds of species. A botanist wanting to distinguish groups of species may prefer to create a taxon at the rank of section or series to avoid making new combinations, i.e. many new binomial names for the species involved. Examples: * ''Lilium'' sectio ''Martagon'' Rchb. are the Turks' cap lilies * ''Plagiochila aerea'' Taylor is the type species of ''Plagiochila'' sect. ''Bursatae'' See also * Section (biology) References Section Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
Kirstenbosch is an important botanical garden nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town. The garden is one of 10 National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes and administered by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). Prior to 1 September 2004, the institute was known as the National Botanical Institute. Kirstenbosch places a strong emphasis on the cultivation of indigenous plants. When Kirstenbosch was founded in 1913 to preserve the flora native to the South Africa’s territory, it was the first botanical garden in the world with this ethos, at a time when invasive species were not considered an ecological and environmental problem. The garden includes a large conservatory (The Botanical Society Conservatory) exhibiting plants from a number of different regions, including savanna, fynbos, karoo and others. Outdoors, the focus is on plants native to the Cape region, highlighted by the spectacular colle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stilbaai
Stilbaai, also known as the ''Bay of Sleeping Beauty'', is a town along the southern coast of South Africa about four hours by car from Cape Town. It is part of the Hessequa Local Municipality in the Western Cape province. Alternate spellings of the town's name include ''Stillbaai''. History Stilbaai is host to a number of interesting archaeological sites, including ancient fish traps thought to have been built by early ancestors of the Khoi people of the Southern Cape, and a shell landfill that has been carbon dated to around 1000 BC. Another archaeological site is situated in a group of caves at Blombos cave, about 12 kilometres from Stilbaai. Artifacts found at Blombos have been carbon dated to around 77,000 BP, making it the oldest known human settlement today. Geography Climate Stilbaai has a temperate climate and receives almost the same amount of rainfall in all four seasons, with peaks in autumn and spring. Temperature averages between 20° and 28° Celsius in the summ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ovary (botany)
In the flowering plants, an ovary is a part of the female reproductive organ of the flower or gynoecium. Specifically, it is the part of the pistil which holds the ovule(s) and is located above or below or at the point of connection with the base of the petals and sepals. The pistil may be made up of one carpel or of several fused carpels (e.g. dicarpel or tricarpel), and therefore the ovary can contain part of one carpel or parts of several fused carpels. Above the ovary is the style and the stigma, which is where the pollen lands and germinates to grow down through the style to the ovary, and, for each individual pollen grain, to fertilize one individual ovule. Some wind pollinated flowers have much reduced and modified ovaries. Fruits A fruit is the mature, ripened ovary of a flower following double fertilization in an angiosperm. Because gymnosperms do not have an ovary but reproduce through double fertilization of unprotected ovules, they produce naked seeds that do not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pollen Presenter
A pollen-presenter is an area on the tip of the style in flowers of plants of the family Proteaceae on which the anthers release their pollen prior to anthesis. To ensure pollination, the style grows during anthesis, sticking out the pollen-presenter prominently, and so ensuring that the pollen easily contacts the bodies of potential pollination vectors such as bees, birds and nectarivorous mammals. The systematic depositing of pollen on the tip of the style implies the plants have some strategy to avoid excessive self-pollination Self-pollination is a form of pollination in which pollen from the same plant arrives at the Stigma (botany), stigma of a flower (in flowering plants) or at the ovule (in gymnosperms). There are two types of self-pollination: in autogamy, pollen i .... References * Plant anatomy + Proteaceae {{Botany-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stigma (botany)
The stigma () is the receptive tip of a carpel, or of several fused carpels, in the gynoecium of a flower. Description The stigma, together with the style and ovary (typically called the stigma-style-ovary system) comprises the pistil, which is part of the gynoecium or female reproductive organ of a plant. The stigma itself forms the distal portion of the style, or stylodia, and is composed of , the cells of which are receptive to pollen. These may be restricted to the apex of the style or, especially in wind pollinated species, cover a wide surface. The stigma receives pollen and it is on the stigma that the pollen grain germinates. Often sticky, the stigma is adapted in various ways to catch and trap pollen with various hairs, flaps, or sculpturings. The pollen may be captured from the air (wind-borne pollen, anemophily), from visiting insects or other animals ( biotic pollination), or in rare cases from surrounding water (hydrophily). Stigma can vary from long and sle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petal
Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''corolla''. Petals are usually accompanied by another set of modified leaves called sepals, that collectively form the ''calyx'' and lie just beneath the corolla. The calyx and the corolla together make up the perianth, the non-reproductive portion of a flower. When the petals and sepals of a flower are difficult to distinguish, they are collectively called tepals. Examples of plants in which the term ''tepal'' is appropriate include Genus, genera such as ''Aloe'' and ''Tulipa''. Conversely, genera such as ''Rose, Rosa'' and ''Phaseolus'' have well-distinguished sepals and petals. When the undifferentiated tepals resemble petals, they are referred to as "petaloid", as in petaloid monocots, orders of monocots with brightly colored tepals. Sinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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