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 …
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 …
The King’s pouch fungus (photo Geoff Ridley) Back in 2012 I read about the half-life of facts. That is the period of time it takes for half the facts in a field …
The Pine That Built a Nation and the Tiny Worm that Could Sneak InIn New Zealand, Pinus radiata is much more than just another tree. It is the backbone of the country’s commercial …
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 …
Scanning electron microscope photographs of Meloidogyne minor. Female
50 years ago tomorrow, on 22 April 1970, a massive protest in USA against pollution and other destructive impacts of humanity heralded the first “Earth Day” and helped spawn the modern environmental …
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. …