Systematics

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Co-author: Peter Buchanan This is the second instalment (first find here) in an exploration of the treasure chest that is New Zealand Fungarium Te Kohinga Hekaheka o Aotearoa (PDD), the national reference …

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 …

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 …

Root plate in the Ōparara River basin dating to the 2013 cyclone that has Mittenia plumula plants (photo David Glenny) Goblins’ gold On looking into the interior of the cave, the background …

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 …