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 …
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 …
This is an excerpt from a Wasp Wipeout at Stuff. At his office in Lincoln near Christchurch, Dr Bob Brown, an ecologist at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, has an incubator containing precious …
Old man’s beard looking a bit sad (photo Jerry Cooper) Every year for the last 20 years I have gone to the annual FUNNZ fungal foray with colleagues and enthusiasts from around …
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 …
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 …
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 …