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Lune Forest
Lune Forest is a Site of Special Scientific Interest covering an extensive area of moorland in the Teesdale district of west Durham, England. In the north, where it adjoins the Upper Teesdale and Appleby Fells SSSIs, it extends from Mickle Fell eastward almost as far as Harter Fell, above the hamlet of Thringarth. Its southern limit is marked by the River Balder, upstream from Balderhead Reservoir, where it shares a boundary with Cotherstone Moor SSSI to the south. Grains o' th' Beck Meadows and Close House Mine SSSIs are entirely surrounded by Lune Forest, but do not form part of it. The area has one of the most extensive areas of relatively undisturbed blanket bog in northern England, as well as a number of upland habitats, including wet and dry heath, acid grassland, limestone grassland and flushes. The predominant vegetation is blanket mire, in which heather, ''Calluna vulgaris'', and hare's-tail cottongrass, ''Eriophorum vaginatum'', are co-dominant. On higher ground, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automaton exhibit and paintings by Goya and El Greco. It sits on the opposite bank to Startforth and is south-west of the county town of Durham. Nearby towns include Bishop Auckland to the north-east, Darlington to the east and Richmond in North Yorkshire to the south-east. The largest employer is GlaxoSmithKline, with a manufacturing facility on the town's outskirts. History Before the Norman conquest the upper half of Teesdale had been combined into an Anglo-Norse estate which was centred upon the ancient village of Gainford and mortgaged to the Earls of Northumberland. The first Norman Bishop of Durham, Bishop Walcher, was murdered in 1080. This led to the surrounding country being attacked and laid waste by the Norman overlords. Further ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blanket Bog
Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses of undulating ground. The blanketing of the ground with a variable depth of peat gives the habitat type its name. Blanket bogs are found extensively throughout the northern hemisphere - well-studied examples are found in Ireland and Scotland, but vast areas of North American tundra also qualify as blanket bogs. In Europe, the southernmost edge of range of this habitat has been recently mapped in the Cantabrian Mountains, northern Spain, but the current distribution of blanket bogs globally remains unknown. In the southern hemisphere they are less well-developed due to the relatively low latitudes of the main land areas, though similar environments are reported in Patagonia, the Falkland Islands and New Zealand. The blanket bogs known as 'f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galium Saxatile
''Galium saxatile'' or heath bedstraw is a plant species of the genus ''Galium''. It is related to cleavers. ''Galium saxatile'' is a perennial mat-forming herb, found on grassland, moors, heaths and woods. It can reach a height of , and flowers in the UK from May to August. The stems are hairless and four sided. Its leaves are long, with 6–8 per whorl, and are lanceolate or obovate in shape. The mountain ringlet butterfly uses the plant for nectar. ''Galium saxatile'' is widespread across much of northern and central Europe from Portugal and Ireland to Scandinavia, France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. It is also reportedly sparingly naturalized in Quebec, California and the Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet .... Gallery Image:Galium sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nardus Stricta
''Nardus'' is a genus of plants belonging to the grass family, containing the single species ''Nardus stricta'', known as matgrass. It is placed in its own tribe Nardeae within the subfamily Pooideae. The name derives from ancient Greek ' () from the earlier Akkadian ''lardu''. It is not to be confused with spikenard, ''Nardostachys jatamansi''. Distribution and ecology ''Nardus stricta'' is native to Eurasia (from Iceland and the Azores to Mongolia), North Africa (Algeria, Morocco), and northeastern North America (Greenland, eastern Canada, and the northeastern United States). ''Nardus stricta'' occurs on heath, moorland, hills, and mountains on nutrient poor acidic sandy to peaty soils and is strongly calcifuge, avoiding calcareous soils. It can occur from low elevations to over , becoming a community-dominant in late snow patches on mountains. ''Nardus stricta'' may also become a dominant species in habitats grazed by cattle or sheep because it is tough and unpalatable. It fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaccinium Myrtillus
''Vaccinium myrtillus'' or European blueberry is a holarctic species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, known by the common names bilberry, blaeberry, wimberry, and whortleberry. It is more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortleberry to distinguish it from other ''Vaccinium'' relatives. Description ''Vaccinium myrtillus'' is a small deciduous shrub that grows tall. It has light green leaves that turn red in autumn and are simple and alternate in arrangement. Leaves are long and ovate to lanceolate or broadly elliptic in shape. Common names Regional names include blaeberry (Scotland), urts or hurts (Cornwall and Devon), hurtleberry, citing Wiersema, J. H. & B. León (1999), ''World economic plants: a standard reference'', and Huxley, A., ed. (1992), ''The new Royal Horticultural Society dictionary of gardening'' myrtleberry, wimberry, whinberry, winberry,Henley, JonBilberries: the true taste of northern England The Guardian, Monday 9 June 2008 and fraughan. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deschampsia Flexuosa
''Deschampsia flexuosa'', commonly known as wavy hair-grass, is a species of bunchgrass in the grass family widely distributed in Eurasia, Africa, South America, and North America. Description Wavy hair-grass, ''Deschampsia flexuosa'', has wiry leaves and delicate, shaking panicles formed of silvery or purplish-brown flower heads on wavy, hair-like stalks. The leaves are bunched in tight tufts with plants forming a very tussocky, low sward 5 to 20 cm tall before flowering, to 30 cm high. File:Deschampsia flexuosa.jpg, Illustration of ''D. flexuosa'' (including '' D. caespitosa'') File:Avenella flexuosa.jpg, Mature inflorescence Distribution and habitat ''Deschampsia flexuosa'' is found naturally in dry grasslands and on moors and heaths. It is also an important component of the ground flora of birch and oak woodland. The plant has a preference for acidic, free-draining soil, and avoids chalk and limestone areas. It can exist over above sea level. [...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] |
Empetrum Nigrum
''Empetrum nigrum'', crowberry, black crowberry, or, in western Alaska, blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually dioecious, but there is a bisexual tetraploid subspecies, ''Empetrum nigrum'' subsp. ''hermaphroditum'', which occurs in more northerly locations and at higher altitude. Description ''Empetrum nigrum'' is a low growing, evergreen shrub with a creeping habit. The leaves are long, arranged alternately along the stem. The stems are red when young and then fade to brown. It blooms between May and June. The flowers are small and not very noticeable, with greenish-pink sepals that turn reddish purple. The round fruits are drupes, wide, usually black or purplish-black but occasionally red. The metabolism and photosynthetic parameters of ''Empetrum'' can be altered in winter-warming experiments. Subspecies * ''Empetrum nigrum'' subsp. ''asiaticum'' (Nakai ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubus Chamaemorus
''Rubus chamaemorus'' is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae, native to cool temperate regions, alpine and arctic tundra and boreal forest. This herbaceous perennial produces amber-colored edible fruit similar to the blackberry. English common names include cloudberry, nordic berry, bakeapple (in Newfoundland and Labrador), knotberry and knoutberry (in England), aqpik or low-bush salmonberry (in Alaska – not to be confused with salmonberry, ''Rubus spectabilis''), and averin or evron (in Scotland). Description Unlike most ''Rubus'' species, the cloudberry is dioecious, and fruit production by a female plant requires pollination from a male plant. The cloudberry grows to high. The leaves alternate between having 5 and 7 soft, handlike lobes on straight, branchless stalks. After pollination, the white (sometimes reddish-tipped) flowers form raspberry-sized aggregate fruits which are more plentiful in wooded rather than sun-exposed habitats. Consisting of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eriophorum Vaginatum
''Eriophorum'' (cottongrass, cotton-grass or cottonsedge) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cyperaceae, the sedge family. They are found throughout the arctic, subarctic, and temperate portions of the Northern Hemisphere in acid bog habitats, being particularly abundant in Arctic tundra regions.Flora Europaea''Eriophorum''/ref> They are herbaceous perennial plants with slender, grass-like leaves. The seed heads are covered in a fluffy mass of cotton-like fibers which are carried on the wind to aid dispersal. The cotton grass also maintains a height of 12 inches and around 2 inches in water. In cold Arctic regions, these masses of translucent fibres also serve as 'down' – increasing the temperature of the reproductive organs during the Arctic summer by trapping solar radiation. Paper and the wicks of candles have been made of its fiber, and pillows stuffed with the same material. The leaves were formerly used in treating diarrhea, and the spongy pith of the stem for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calluna Vulgaris
''Calluna vulgaris'', common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus ''Calluna'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade. It is the dominant plant in most heathland and moorland in Europe, and in some bog vegetation and acidic pine and oak woodland. It is tolerant of grazing and regenerates following occasional burning, and is often managed in nature reserves and grouse moors by sheep or cattle grazing, and also by light burning. ''Calluna'' was separated from the closely related genus ''Erica'' by Richard Anthony Salisbury, who devised the generic name ''Calluna'' probably from the Ancient Greek (), "beautify, sweep clean", in reference to its traditional use in besoms. The specific epithet ''vulgaris'' is Latin for 'common'. ''Calluna'' is differentiated from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Fen
A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. The unique water chemistry of fens is a result of the ground or surface water input. Typically, this input results in higher mineral concentrations and a more basic pH than found in bogs. As peat accumulates in a fen, groundwater input can be reduced or cut off, making the fen ombrotrophic rather than minerotrophic. In this way, fens can become more acidic and transition to bogs over time. Fens can be found around the world, but the vast majority are located at the mid to high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. They are dominated by sedges and mosses, particularly graminoids that may be rarely found elsewhere, such as the sedge species ''Carex exilis''. Fens are highly biodiverse ecosystems and often serve as habitats for endangered or r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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