A specimen of Xanthorhoe bulbulata (Geometridae) from the NZAC. This moth is feared possibly extinct. (photo Birgit Rhode) The discovery of the tiny black-and-white micro-moth Eudarcia richardsoni in the Swiss Alps in…
4 mm high piece of “gold” (photo Peter Johnston) It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.…
It’s time to relax the strict guidelines around ecosourcing seed for local genetic stock if we want to build resilience into our changing environment. This call comes from MW researchers Peter Heenan, William…
New Zealand is a hotspot for Carex (a type of sedge) with 116 species. This is not far short of our biggest plant group, the hebes (Veronica), with 125 species. The ancestor…
A box of my ascomycete specimens (photo Peter Johnston) The life of a field systematist revolves around trips into the field to collect a wide variety of organisms, in my case ascomycete…
When I first started out learning about the flora of Aotearoa New Zealand I bought three books, volume one and two of the “Flora of New Zealand” and the first edition of…
We have recently scanned and added to our database many historic images of bacterial plant pathogen diseases. The ICMP culture collection is very useful as a store of living cryo-preserved fungal and…
Flora of New Zealand Volume 1, cover by Nancy Adams What do Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, and the Flora of New Zealand have in common? Benedict Cumberbatch, who played “Khan” in Star…