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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
Display items from the PDD treasure chest (photo Manaaki Whenua). Did you know that we have our own national collection of fungi? The New Zealand Fungarium Te Kohinga Hekaheka o Aotearoa (PDD) …
Peter Johnston and David Hera, Mangapapa Conservation area Autumn might be the cold rainy month everyone hates, but for a group of mycologists it’s their favourite time of the year. Autumn means …
Hydora lanigera (photo Manaaki Whenua) We have few beetles in New Zealand that could be called truly aquatic but, what we do have includes the riffle beetles in the genus Hydora. With …
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 …