#podocarp

[drhoz]

The Great ACT-NSW-NZ Trip, 2023-2024 - Taranaki Maunga

A 2,518 metres (8,261 ft) tall stratovolcano, ideally positioned to catch every change in the weather coming off the Tasman. As a result it gets up to 11 meters of rain a year, and the winds between the peak and the remains of its predecessor can exceed 130kph.

Naturally, of great importance to the local iwi, and it certainly made an impression of the Europeans too - although a lot of early paintings exaggerate the height.

watercolour by Charles Heaphy, some time between 1839 and 1849.

They named it Mt Egmont, although happily the original name is back to being the official one.

The volcano erupts, on average, every 90 years, with major eruptions every 500. Of considerably more concern are the repeated catastrophic cone collapses that turn most of the volcano into gigantic landslides sweeping fridge-sized boulders and smaller debris dozens of kilometers away from the volcano, and well past the current coastline.

Anyway, while we wait for it to go bang again, visitors can enjoy the fascinating change in vegetation as you go up the mountain. As you get higher and higher, the coastal vegetation is replaced by the goblin forests, contorted mossy woods dominated by Kamahi (Weinmannia racemosa), that developed after eruptions destroyed the preexisting podocarp and Nothofagus forest, and as you go higher the trees are replaced by tussock grasses and later alpine plants.

There are still kiwi in the national park, which is one reason dogs are strictly banned. The introduced stoats continue to be a problem - we saw one on one of the tracks.

There was also this building, a corrugated iron structure noteworthy for being the oldest such building left anywhere in the world. It was originally a fort, and still has gun slits. The windows are new.

Most of the species I saw around the visitors center are were new to me - I could have spent a week just phtographing the incredible lichens in the goblin forest. Here's some that weren't new.

And a few lichens I don't have an ID on.

[willtheweaver]

A writer’s guide to forests: From the poles to tropics, part 2

Dearest writers, and all who find this guide, big shout out to you. Now let’s get back into things and move ever closer to the equator.

Temperate rainforest

While most people think of rainforests as being a purely tropical environment, several exist in more seasonal areas of the planet.

Location- Coastal regions. The North American temperate rainforest is a thin belt stretching from California, through British Columbia and up into southern Alaska. In the southern hemisphere, the largest forest is found along the southern stretches of the Andes.

Climate- Temperate to subpolar. Conditions are wet, with moisture coming in the form of rain and sea mist. Seasons are variable, with summers being warm and winters cold and snowy.

Plant life- Conifers dominate these forests, with deciduous trees restricted to lower altitudes. In the north, the primary species are Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, red cedar, western hemlock, and giant redwoods. Southern forests are dominated by Podocarps, Monkey puzzle, and southern beech. High humidity means that moss, lichens and ferns grow amongst tree trunks and the forest floor.

Animal life- Whilst more densely populated than the boreal forests, the amount of wildlife is limited by resinous conifer needles, and the lack of plants on the forest floor in denser areas. Most species are arboreal, with weasels, squirrels, and various birds along up the majority of life. Moist conditions mean that there are many types of amphibians and invertebrates that live on the forest floor. Southern hemisphere forests have become host to many invasive species, such as deer, beavers, rats, and ferrets.

How the forest affects the story- The most obvious challenge for characters will be the changing of the seasons. What do your characters do as the days grow shorter and colder? And let’s not forget that rain and mist are common. Damp conditions are a breeding ground for mold and rot, so people will have to come up with ways of keeping them and their possessions dry.Then comes the vegetation. What kind of culture would develop among the tallest trees in the world? Do they live on the forest floor or up in the trees? The density of the canopy can make farming impractical, unless done in clearings or tree top platforms. If your characters and their society are arboreal, then how do they travel between trees? Bridges? Zip-lines? Or do they take inspiration from nature and glide between trees? Imagine if people on the ground meet those from up above. How would these two cultures be different? Would interactions be peaceful, antagonistic, or do they have no contact (at least until the plot requires it)? Being close to the coast, does the sea have an influence on characters and their culture? How would you explain this to someone not familiar with this environment? And you are not limited to the Earth. Remember, the California forests were the stand-in for the forest moon of Endor from Star Wars.

[ruleofbirds]

𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚕𝚘𝚐_𝟶𝟸.𝟷

Moa's Ark & Zealandia

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/moas-ark-1990/series

Moa's Ark (1990s TV series) opening animation. It was during the 90's that scientists formulated the "Zealandia" protocontinent theory and complexity of how species migrated over time, putting the last nail in the coffin of the idea that everyone got a free ride over on a piece of Australia. Going through Aotearoa's natural history doco archives has been a lot of fun.

Hello again! I took a bit of a break in posting long- form updates, but I think there's enough on my mind for a second batch of posts this week. After that there will again just be small updates on the Instagram until May - when I may have some sort of concept media for the sim to show off. For now I'll aim for a focused peek into a couple of aspects of it as usual.

This post is going to be all about the Moa, the species that got me hooked on this project. It's also going to be about species variation, and the tension between scientific accuracy and visual accessibility.

Moa skeletal reconstitutions at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand.

A couple of interesting facts about the moa;

-We currently classify them as nine species. Here is a full catalog of every time someone thought they'd found a new one:

-Within many species, female moa can be more than twice the size of males (yes, this is one reason so many moa "species" were identified)

-Moa are unique in that they had no wings (not even the kiwi's tiny t-rex stubs) and, thank goodness because so many NZ species can be traced back to evolving from Australian fauna, their closest past relatives are South American tinamous rather than the emu.

-They also got a bad wrap for their past perception as tall, emu- like, big dumb grass grazers. Actually, while they're nowhere near as smart as multi-sense-foraging kiwi, they could identify and feast on a whole variety of twigs, herbs, leaves and berries - most of which were found in the more common forest than grassland.

This is why they have a bulky build and head-forward posture (until kinda recently, museum curators tended to give them that tall, emu/giraffe like posture, even adding extra vertebrae for show.)

Whanganui Regional Museum (This isn't close to the worst examples)

So; how do I even begin to approach the scope, as well as potential uncertainty, of data we have on the Moa?

Here's one way: Oversimplification!

Screenshots from Godot editor & runtime previews for compatibility (web) mode and forward+ (basically more shaders) renderer. The camera is RTS- style; getting the runtime shots was a bit finnicky.

I've started to build low-poly models in Blender for the fauna, which in the future I'd love to rig for animation and get super technical with appearance variation. For now I'll focus on the system for placing them in the right biome and basic pathing behaviour, and the Moa will be a North Island giant moa based vaguely off this model for an AR national park exhibit: https://moaparkotorohanga.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/a-collection-of-moa-feedback-from-trevor-worthy-and-lizzy-perrett/

While I'm not working directly on the simulator for the next while, I am building this 2D tool to represent the moa's species variation; it is *incredibly* helpful to have just set up a system where I can add and edit instances of a broader Moa "class", and I'm looking forward to giving each species its visual character (the main creative liberty I'll be taking is colour coding from grey to brown to communicate which of New Zealand's islands each species populated, as well as their preferred biome (there's 3 main ones: subalpine mountain, wet podocarp forest, dry forest/ lowland)

Moa "collection" project at time of writing.

If this exercise has highlighted anything though, it's just how difficult it is to reduce life's complexities to a single shape that represents a single numeric value. Those who read my last posts may remember that any given moa species' size may have varied over time and with temperature, (generally bigger during ice ages and smaller out of them) along altitude, (generally bigger and bulkier higher up) and just within species based on how they adapted to any given place. Not to mention the relatively massive lady moa.

And since we're only working with what's left of them all - the only intact gizzard samples proving that whole diet theory, and most of the remains we have to work with, are those found in Pyramid Valley in Canterbury (a swamp with surrounding mosaic of vegetation and forest) - who knows how to truly depict what life was like tens of thousands of years ago.

From the Moa book by Quinn Berentson

A very cursed JavaScript "spreadsheet".

So, very long-winded post. I hope you found something interesting within! Something that made you think about nature's craziness maybe. I meant to get across just how much there is to scientific communication, and I barely touched on how I aim to keep the overall narrative in focus (or basically be aware of it.)

I can't wait to work on this more collaboratively, with folks who really know their stuff about ecology and the cultural aspects of Aotearoa - I think the potential for collaboration and education is what's keeping me going with this project.

Until next time ! - here's some of my highlights from a trip to the Zealandia ecosanctuary.

Kia hora te marino

Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana

Hei huarahi mā tātou i te rangi nei

Aroha atu, aroha mai

Tātou i a tātou katoa

Hui e! Tāiki e!

May peace be widespread

May the sea be like greenstone

A pathway for us all this day

Let us show respect for each other

For one another

Bind us all together!

[harpagornis]

Multituberculate Earth: Green (and white) Antarctica

The allochiropterid Chimil kaslem, from the Oligocene of Antarctica. Here depicted with speculative structural colours like those of mandrill faces, exhibitting for a potential mate. By hodarinundu

Through most of the Phanerozoic (that’s fancy for all the time span between the Cambrian and today) the South Pole has been much warmer than it is today (barring a short lived glaciation at the Devonian/Permian boundary) Even as recently as 5 million years ago our timeline’s Antarctica bore southern beech and conifer forests. The complete freezing was a very young and aberrant process, even if mild glaciations previously existed.

The nature of Antarctica’s white death is generally attributed to the complete isolation of the continent, the formation of the Drake Passage allowing cold waters to cycle viciously and sucking out all warmth and preventing warmer waters from arriving southwards. However, recent studies show that the main culprit was a decline in CO2 levels, and that full blown glaciation only happened when things were cold enough, a while after the Drake Passage formed as the first paragraph study shows.

In this timeline, the Azolla Event did not happen, and so atmospheric CO2 levels remained higher. Antarctica’s freezing was thus delayed, but the climatic drops at the Grand Coupure still left an impact.

In our world, the Eocene La Meseta formation bears the bulk of Antarctic Cenozoic fossils. Here, the suceeding Bay Formation picks up where it left off, bearing an unique mammalian fauna absence in our timeline. The formation seems to represent a southern forest ecosystem, but one drier than the La Meseta Formation. Conifers are the dominant trees, but southern beeches and ferns are present to lesser degrees. Temperatures were similar to those of modern Patagonia, though perhaps warmer and wetter near the coast.

Here, the dominant terrestrial mammals are notoptilodontoideans and leonardids, generalist groups, mirroring the dominance of small to mid-sized marsupials in our timeline’s Eocene (this timeline’s Eocene Antarctica was much warmer and tropical, btw). Several clades have continuity from the Eocene, but there is a drastic diversity drop by 45%, suggesting that the colder and drier environments were progressively less rich in biodiversity. Notoptilodontoideans seem to have dominated carnivorous and durophagous niches, while leonardids were mostly omnivorous generalists or insectivores. Examples of the former include Rageowrapper badenala, an ocelote sized predator with long, fang-like secondary plagiaulacoids, and Laga robana, a wolverine sized robust species with smaller fang plagiaulacoids but massive and brick-like normal ones; examples of the latter include O’tr ul, a mole-like necrolestid, and C’al anika, a deer-sized sengi-like omnivore.

Flying mammals are represented primarily by pteroectypodids, whose “feathered” wings gave them an advantage over other flying mammals in colder climates, and by allochiropterids, which evolved in Antarctica and thus maintained a higher species diversity here. It is here where we find the largest Oligocene members of either group, some reaching wingspans of two meters. A similar dichotomy occurs between them and their flightless cousins, which pteroectypodids being more raptorial, granivorous, molluscivorous or weird wood-chewing forms analogous to woodpeckers, while allochiropterids remain mostly either insectivores or generalists, with a few remaining frugivores feeding on podocarp fruits. Neither group appears to have been migratory, suggesting either year round foraging or hibernation, though there is currently no evidence of the latter. Aside from frugivorous allochiropterids, flying mammal diversity seems to increase by 30%, likely due to less competition from flightless species and because flight allows for covering larger distances in search of food.

Besides those, some fragmentary remains of gigantic acamapichtliids (+6 meter wingspans) and of insulonycteriids (+5 meter wingspans) are also present, suggesting that these giantic flyers were summertime visitors or even permanent residents, though only at large sizes and low diversities to cope with the colder, less biodiverse environment.

The most strongly affected groups were mesungulatids and gondwanatheres, more specialised and more vulnerable to the collapse of Eocene forests into these new colder ones. Ferugliotheriidae is only represented by one taxon, K’terrernen ultima, a hare sized generalistic herbivore in a place where tougher vegetation like grass has started to dominate. One sudamericid, Moinee antarcticus, was a sheep sized grazer, while two greniodontid genera, Yarramundi and Guwayana, appear to have been mixed grazer browsers, the former represented by five hare to sheep sized species and the latter by one boar-sized one, G. koolmatrie. The largest herbivore of the assemblage is Austrocamellus nungeena, an herbivorous mesungulatid weighting a mere 500 kg, a positive dwarf compared to its brethren further north. The apex predator was also a mesungulatid, Tarrabah semifrons, about as large as a striped hyena.

No herpetofauna aside from some tuatara-like sphenodontians, one small meiolaniid and rhinodermatid and leiopelmatid frogs survived, all represented by fragmentary remains. Some ratite like palaeognaths and giant flying pelagornithids are present, but the reccord for terrestrial birds is even scarcer.

By contrast, the surrounding oceans appear to have thrived with life. Both penguins, choristoderes and marine mammals – all groups, with monotremes and marine necrolestids in particular being quite diverse due to these being their ancestral homewaters – appear in great abundance in the coastoal deposits, the colder waters being more nutrient rich than tropical ones. Rockeries of millions of flightless seabirds and mammals littered the beaches, breeding even during winter months. The largest mammal of the Oligocene Antarctic is Soorts giganteus, a taeniolabidid as large as a Steller’s Sea Cow that foraged in the rich kelp forests, which compose its many known coprolites.

In this timeline, Antarctica thus remained hospitable for longer. True, the colder climate did make things harder for its terrestrial inhabittants, but while the old order of gondwanatheres, mesungulatids, ratites and herpetofauna (choristoderes aside at least) is on its way out, the generalists and sea dwellers keep going. And given that the Miocene will see a rise in temperatures, who knows what weird directions the southernmost continent will take, now that its future is not bleak?

[life-around-me-yura15cbx]

Dacrydium cupressinum, commonly known as rimu, is a large evergreen coniferous tree endemic to the forests of New Zealand. It is a member of the southern conifer group, the podocarps. The former name "red pine" has fallen out of common use.A very common and widespread tree of New Zealand, red pine was once the main source of wood within its native range. Historically, it was used for construction and furniture, but now it's mainly used for ornamental purposes. One of the most ancient trees in New Zealand, the oldest specimen recorded is said to be 800 years old.

432 Huia Road, Laingholm, Auckland 0604

2JVG+R8P Auckland

-36.9554170, 174.6258220

270 Dairy Flat Highway, Albany, Auckland 0632

7MHW+M47 Auckland

-36.7208440, 174.6952830

[conifersgarden]

[onetechspot1]

Unveiling the Magic of Podocarpus in The Perfect Hedge

The screen of every garden or park justifying its beauty is done by yellow wood plants or Podocarpus species. These are the most widely spread family of Podocarpaceae. They belongs sot the genus Conifers. These are evergreen shrubs or small trees. They are widely used as ornamental plants for parks, gardens, and roadsides.

The name Podocarpus is derived from a Greek language. ‘Podus’ means foot and ‘karpous’ means fruit. The family of Podocarpus, that is Podocarpaceae consists of 97 to 107 species. They are commonly called ‘yellow-wood’ or ‘pine’.

Podocarpus Dispersion

Podocarpus are the most widely distributed Podocarp family. The plant is native to Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and Southern America, and many Pacific Islands. In ancient times it was endemic to Africa, South America, India, and New Zealand for some time about 105 to 45 million years. It is also known as Antarctic flora.

Illustration

These are evergreen woody plants. Their height ranges from 3 ft to 82 ft (that is 1 to 25 m). It can reach up to a maximum height of 40 m. The primary branches are called pseudo whorls. Pseudo-whorls is the whorling of leaves around the main trunk. The bark of the plants of this family is characterized by scaly and fibrous texture.

The terminal buds of the plant are mostly distinctive by bud scales. The leaves of the plant are simple and flattened by an arrangement of leaves or phyllotaxy to spiral. The plants of this family are mostly dioecious that is male reproductive parts pollen found in male cones and female reproductive parts, and seeds found in female cone lies on two different plants. Few exceptional plant species of family are monoecious.

The seed cones consist of 2–5 scales. These scale fuses to form fleshly berry fruit on maturity. Those cones having 1 scale are considered to be sterile. The cone fruits are mostly red, pink, or bluish in color. These colorful and fruity beery-like fruits attract birds and insects. This helps in the dispersion of seeds by the birds and insects.

Sensitivity of Podocarpus

Podocarpus is highly sensitive and causes extreme allergies. The pollen grains of the plants rate 10/10 on the OPAL (Ogren Plant Allergy) rating scale. The female cone rates 1/10 on the OPAL scale. Thus it is called an ‘allergy fighting’ cone.

The stem, leaves, flowers, and pollen of the plant are toxic. They are cytotoxic which causes harm to cells. The side effects of cytotoxicity of plant result in damage similarly caused by chemotherapy.

[drhoz]

#2405 - Pectinopitys ferruginea - Miro

AKA Prumnopitys ferruginea, and originally Podocarpus ferrugineus. 'ferruginea' derives from the rusty colour of dried herbarium specimens. Miro comes from the Proto-Polynesian word milo - the Pacific rosewood (Thespesia populnea) found on tropical islands far to the north.

A podocarp endemic to New Zealand, growing in lowland terrain and on hill slopes throughout the two main islands and on Stewart Island.

It can live to about 600 years in age, and 25m in height, with a trunk up to 1.3 m diameter. Like other podocarps, the fruit is fleshy and berrylike, and spread by birds such as the New Zealand Pigeon.

Lake Mangamahoe, Taranaki Ringplain, New Zealand

[einereiseblog]

Eine Kurzanleitung für den Besuch der unglaublichen Blue Pools in der Nähe von Wanaka, Neuseeland. Ein kurzer, aber malerischer Spaziergang entlang des Blue Pools Walking Track zeigt einen türkisfarbenen Badebereich, der der perfekte Ort ist, um sich in der Nähe von Wanaka abzukühlen. Die Blue Pools of New Zealand sind mittlerweile zu einem der berühmtesten Badeorte des Landes geworden. Die Blue Pools liegen im Mount-Aspiring-Nationalpark in der Region Otago und sind ein perfekter Tagesausflug von Wanaka oder der Westküste. Nachdem wir die Mount-Fox-Route-Wanderung zum Sonnenaufgang beendet hatten, wollten wir unbedingt sauber werden und uns abwaschen. Da wir nach Wanaka fuhren, war es absolut sinnvoll, am Schwimmbereich Blue Pools vorbeizuschauen. Hier ist eine kurze Anleitung, wie Sie hierher kommen und was Sie im Blue Pools New Zealand erwarten können. Sind die Blue Pools in der Nähe von Wanaka? Die berühmten neuseeländischen Blue Pools liegen etwa eine Autostunde von Wanaka entfernt am State Highway 6. Technisch gesehen sind die Blue Pools nicht in Wanaka. Die nächste Stadt ist 8 km entfernt und heißt Makarora. Der blaue Fluss, der die Becken speist, trägt den gleichen Namen. Entfernung von Wanaka nach Blue Pools Die Blue Pools befinden sich etwa 72 km von der Gemeinde Wanaka entfernt auf der Südinsel Neuseelands. Klook.com So kommen Sie zu den Blue Pools Leider sind die Blue Pools ein gutes Stück vom nahe gelegenen Touristenzentrum Wanaka entfernt. Wenn Sie also das unberührte türkisfarbene Bergwasser erleben möchten, benötigen Sie ein Transportmittel. Nachfolgend finden Sie einige Möglichkeiten, um den Parkplatz zu erreichen. Auf dem Highway gibt es viele Schilder und der Parkplatz ist riesig – Sie werden ihn nicht verfehlen. Von der Westküste Der State Highway 6 führt von Haast an der Westküste wieder hinunter nach Wanaka. Der Parkplatz Blue Pools liegt etwa 55 Minuten (70 km) entfernt. Von Wanaka Wie bereits erwähnt, müssen Sie von Wanaka aus eine ähnliche Entfernung von 72 km fahren, um die Blue Pools zu erreichen. Leider gibt es keine direkten öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel von Wanaka zu den Blue Pools. Es ist jedoch möglich, den Bus zum Makarora Country Cafe zu nehmen und dann per Anhalter oder Taxi zu den Blue Pools zu fahren. Mount Aspiring National Park vom Parkplatz Blue Pools aus VERBINDUNG: ROCKY MOUNTAIN GIPFELWANDERUNG IN DER NÄHE VON WANAKA Blue Pools-Wanderweg Gehlänge: 3 km hin und zurück Dauer: 1 Stunde hin und zurück (mehr Zeit zum Schwimmen) Die Strecke beginnt direkt neben den öffentlichen Toilettenanlagen am Ende des Blue Pools-Parkplatzes. Der Wanderweg Blue Pools gilt als einer der besten und beliebtesten Wanderwege in Otago. Die meist flache Wanderung schlängelt sich durch ausgewachsenen Buchen- und Podocarp-Wald und überquert den Fluss Makarora entlang zweier Hängebrücken. VERBINDUNG: ALLES, WAS SIE ÜBER ROYS PEAK IN DER NÄHE VON WANAKA WISSEN MÜSSEN Schwimmen in den Blue Pools In den Blue Pools gibt es mehrere Möglichkeiten für ein schnelles Bad. Tatsächlich gibt es bereits nach ein oder zwei Minuten entlang des Wanderwegs einen großartigen Ort an einem ruhigen Abschnitt des Flusses. Der beste Ort zum Schwimmen in den Blue Pools ist jedoch an den Pools selbst. Das verträumte, blaue Gletscherwasser schwimmt unter einer malerischen Drehbrücke. An einem klaren Tag wärmt die Sonne den Schieferberg, der den Pool umgibt, was der perfekte Ort ist, um sich hinzulegen, zu entspannen und die Landschaft zu genießen. Seien Sie gewarnt, das Wasser ist absolut eiskalt! Trotzdem ist das Schwimmen im Gletscherwasser der Blue Pools definitiv etwas für die Erinnerungsbank! WEITERE DINGE RUND UM WANAKA UND DIE WESTKÜSTE Ich hoffe, dass Sie diese Kurzanleitung zum Besuch der Blue Pools in der Nähe von Wanaka nützlich fanden. Wenn Sie Fragen oder Neuigkeiten haben, teilen Sie dies bitte anderen Reisenden mit, indem Sie unten einen Kommentar hinterlassen. Holen

Sie sich vorerst noch mehr Reiseinspiration und Ideen, indem Sie weitere Reiseführer für Aktivitäten in der Nähe von Wanaka und der Westküste lesen. Beginnen Sie alternativ mit diesem Wanderführer zu den besten Wanderungen der Südinsel! MEINE KAMERA UND FOTOAUSRÜSTUNG Spiegellose Kamera: Canon R5Drohne: DJI Mavic Pro 2360-Grad-Action-Kamera: Insta360 One X2Landschaftsobjektiv: Canon RF 15-35 mm f/2.8LAllround-Objektiv: Canon RF 24–105 mm f/4L Teleobjektiv: Canon RF 100–500 mm f/f/4,5–7,1 LLange Aktionsstange: Insta360 Invisible Pole (BulletTime)Landschaftslinsenfilter: Hoya Circular PolarizerKamerarucksack: F-Stop TilopaLieblingsfotozubehör: Peak Design Capture Clip Eine Liste meiner empfohlenen Fotoausrüstung (einschließlich was ich benutze und warum) findest du in meinem Leitfaden für Kameraausrüstung für die Reise. Wenn Sie eines der Fotos auf dieser Website verwenden möchten, besuchen Sie bitte meine Lizenzierungsseite, um herauszufinden, wie. Ich verkaufe auch professionelle Kunstdrucke, besuchen Sie meinen Print Store oder kontaktieren Sie mich direkt für Zollabzüge von Bildern auf We Seek Travel. Auf Pinterest? Warum speichern Sie diese Anleitung nicht für später in Blue Pools? Wenn Sie We Seek Travel auf Pinterest folgen, bleiben Sie mit all den neuen Reiseführern und Blogs auf dem Laufenden. PIN ES FOLGE MIR .

[limerickmachine]

The cassowary of Yapen Was eating some podocarp when It spied a banana Inside a piranha So ate the whole thing there and then

[fatehbaz]

Imperial grasslands; haunting transformation of Aotearoa:

Grassland was one of the last components of the imperial agro-commodity chain to gain the attention of improvers [...]. Everywhere indigenous plants, be they of grassland, forest or wetland, were being replaced with what were usually termed, not always accurately, ‘English grasses’. [...]

Colonial ‘improvement’ was replicated through even more starkly imposed spatialities than those of parliamentary enclosure in Britain. As cropping could be of significance only for local markets, agricultural rotation received less attention than it did at ‘home’. Distance initially allowed the export only of wool or wheat, so that lands formally and informally under imperial control in Australasia and the Americas became huge grazing estates for sheep and cattle. [...]

In New Zealand, the state acquired increasing acreages of indigenous (Maori) lands for conversion to pasturage. [...]. A grass of some significance in this new landscape was cocksfoot, or, as it is known in the United States, ‘orchard grass’. The seed was initially obtained in Britain. In the mid-1880s a fast growing reciprocal trade in Peninsula cocksfoot grass seed developed, to Australia, Britain, Europe and America. The leafiness and persistence of what became known in Britain as ‘Akaroa cocksfoot’ (after the biggest Peninsula bay) [from Banks Peninsula, Aotearoa] [...]. In the 1890s this cocksfoot was also being sold to farmers in bush burn North Island regions such as the Manawatu and Taranaki to create pastures anew. [...] It was sown in mixtures with ryegrass and clover. These districts soon became the centres of New Zealand dairying, with the surrounding hill country being stocked with sheep. [...] It occurred so fast that by 1908 the North Island carried more sheep than the earlier settled South Island: 12.2 compared to 11.3 million. [...]

A good example of such environmental ‘improvement’ was the erasure of forest and its replacement by sown pasture on Banks Peninsula. This steeply sloping volcanic protrusion on the eastern coast of the South Island is adjacent to the colonial city of Christchurch. The peninsula's trees, many of them huge southern conifers, or podocarps, hundreds of years old, represented a state of wilderness as well as a source of timber to colonists. Between 1860 and 1890 most were cut down, and the harvested logs dispatched by sea from the peninsula's small bays to the ports for Christchurch and Dunedin. [...]

As a contemporary put it, ‘True gloomy Rembrandt like shadows have disappeared…but in the stead of the past beauties are smiling slopes of grass’.

The forest remnants were fired, and seed of ‘English grasses’ broadcast in the embers.

--

Text by: Tom Brooking and Eric Pawson. “Silences of Grass: Retrieving the Role of Pasture Plants in the Development of New Zealand and the British Empire.” The Journal o Imperial and Commonwealth History. August 2007. [Italicized first line/heading added by me.]

[life-around-me-yura15cbx]

The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula, from the Greek for "furry tailed" and the Latin for "little fox".

Class:Mammalia

Infraclass:Marsupialia

Order:Diprotodontia

Family:Phalangeridae

Genus:Trichosurus

widespread in New Zealand since its introduction in 1850. In New Zealand, possums favour broadleaf-podocarp near farmland pastures.

Ли́сий кузу́, или щёткохвост, или лисовидный поссум, или обыкновенный кузу-лиса — млекопитающее семейства кускусовых.

Kaitarakihi Bay, Huia, Auckland 0604

XHRP+WC8 Auckland

-37.007715, 174.586077

сумчатые наземные ночные млекопитающие.

[conifersgarden]

[gkar56]

Mycena parsonsii. by Bernard Spragg. NZ Via Flickr: Common name: Pink helmet fungus Mycena parsonsii is a small saprophytic fungi, a member of the gilled mushrooms. It grows in clusters on dead wood of Kunzea ericoides, Leptospermum scoparium, Dacrycarpus dacrydioides, Metrosideros excelsa and other Metrosideros species in lowland podocarp dicotyledonous forest throughout New Zealand in autumn and early winter. It can also grow on the wood of introduced trees.

[willtheweaver]

Quarentine blog day 354

New Zealand

Almost as far south

As south goes

Where whales roam

Amid ice from the Antarctic

Islands rise from the stormy ocean.

The spine of the group

Peaks young and active

With a heart of fire

Beneath ice and snow.

Here in isolation

Where fire and ice meet

Grow plants

From another time

Cycads and tree ferns

Spread fronds beneath

Kauri and podocarps.

Here birds walk

And giant insects crawl over

The forest floor

And mammals

Are largely absent

Save for those

That fly

Or else arrive

From further away

Among them

Voyagers from the tropics

In great canoes

Carrying sails

Like the wings of seabirds-

Just one of a number of arrivals

To a hidden gem

At the edge of the world.