1.
Garigal National Park
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The Garigal National Park is a protected national park that is located in the North Shore region of Sydney, New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The 2, 202-hectare national park is situated approximately 20 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district. The park trails are popular with bushwalkers and mountain bike riders, others trails include the Heath Track and Bare Creek Track. The word Garigal is a derivation of the word Carigal or Caregal used to describe the people who lived in Guringai country. Much of the park is bounded by residential development along the tops and it is easily accessible at numerous points by road. In the south–eastern sector – Surrounding Bantry Bay between Killarney Heights and Forestville to the west, and Wakehurst Parkway and the Manly Dam Reserve to the east. Garigal National Park is home to a range of fauna, including birds, snakes. There is also a number of introduced pests, including rabbits, protected areas of New South Wales Garigal National Park. NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, Government of New South Wales. Garigal National Park, Plan of management, NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service. Detailed track notes and maps of most of the walks in Garigal National Park, the Northern Beaches Mountain Biking Group
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
4.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
5.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
6.
Eudicots
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The eudicots, Eudicotidae or eudicotyledons are a monophyletic clade of flowering plants that had been called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dicots by previous authors. The close relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains was initially seen in studies of shared derived characters. These plants have a trait in their pollen grains of exhibiting three colpi or grooves paralleling the polar axis. Later molecular evidence confirmed the basis for the evolutionary relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains. The term means true dicotyledons, as it contains the majority of plants that have been considered dicots and have characteristics of the dicots, the term eudicots has subsequently been widely adopted in botany to refer to one of the two largest clades of angiosperms, monocots being the other. The remaining angiosperms are sometimes referred to as basal angiosperms or paleodicots, the other name for the eudicots is tricolpates, a name which refers to the grooved structure of the pollen. Members of the group have tricolpate pollen, or forms derived from it and these pollens have three or more pores set in furrows called colpi. In contrast, most of the seed plants produce monosulcate pollen. The name tricolpates is preferred by some botanists to avoid confusion with the dicots, numerous familiar plants are eudicots, including many common food plants, trees, and ornamentals. Most leafy trees of midlatitudes also belong to eudicots, with exceptions being magnolias and tulip trees which belong to magnoliids, and Ginkgo biloba. The name eudicots is used in the APG system, of 1998 and it is applied to a clade, a monophyletic group, which includes most of the dicots. The eudicots can be divided into two groups, the basal eudicots and the core eudicots, basal eudicot is an informal name for a paraphyletic group. The core eudicots are a monophyletic group, a 2010 study suggested the core eudicots can be divided into two clades, Gunnerales and a clade called Pentapetalae, comprising all the remaining core eudicots
7.
Rosids
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The rosids are members of a large clade of flowering plants, containing about 70,000 species, more than a quarter of all angiosperms. The clade is divided into 16 to 20 orders, depending upon circumscription and classification and these orders, in turn, together comprise about 140 families. Fossil rosids are known from the Cretaceous period, molecular clock estimates indicate that the rosids originated in the Aptian or Albian stages of the Cretaceous, between 125 and 99.6 million years ago. The name is based upon the name Rosidae, which had usually been understood to be a subclass, in 1967, Armen Takhtajan showed that the correct basis for the name Rosidae is a description of a group of plants published in 1830 by Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling. The clade was later renamed Rosidae and has been variously delimited by different authors, the name rosids is informal and not assumed to have any particular taxonomic rank like the names authorized by the ICBN. The rosids are monophyletic based upon evidence found by molecular phylogenetic analysis, three different definitions of the rosids were used. Some authors included the orders Saxifragales and Vitales in the rosids, others excluded both of these orders. The circumscription used in this article is that of the APG IV classification, which includes Vitales, the rosids and Saxifragales form the superrosids clade. This is one of three groups compose the Pentapetalae, the others being Dilleniales and the superasterids. The rosids consist of two groups, the order Vitales and the eurosids, the eurosids, in turn, are divided into two groups, fabids and malvids. The rosids consist of 17 orders, in addition to Vitales, there are 8 orders in fabids and 8 orders in malvids. Some of the orders have only recently been recognized and these are Vitales, Zygophyllales, Crossosomatales, Picramniales, and Huerteales. The phylogeny of Rosids shown below is adapted from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group website, the nitrogen-fixing clade contains a high number of actinorhizal plants. Not all plants in this clade are actinorhizal, however, media related to Rosids at Wikimedia Commons
8.
Myrtales
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The Myrtales are an order of flowering plants placed as a sister to the eurosids II clade as of the publishing of the Eucalyptus grandis genome in June 2014. The APG III system of classification for angiosperms still places it within the eurosids, the following families are included as of APG III, Alzateaceae S. A. Graham Combretaceae R. Br. The Cronquist system gives essentially the composition, except the Vochysiaceae are removed to the order Polygalales. The families Sonneratiaceae, Trapaceae, and Punicaceae are removed from the Lythraceae, in the classification system of Dahlgren the Myrtales were in the superorder Myrtiflorae. The APG III system agrees with the older Cronquist circumscriptions of treating Psiloxylaceae and Heteropyxidaceae within Myrtaceae, ellagitannins are reported in dicotyledoneous angiospermes, and notably in species in the order Myrtales. Myrtales is dated to have begun 89-99 million years ago in Australasia, there is some contention as to that date however, which was obtained using nuclear DNA. When looking at chloroplast DNA, the ancestor is instead considered to have evolved in the mid-cretaceous period in Southeast Africa. Although the APG system classifies myrtales as within the eurosids, the published genome of Eucalyptus grandis places the order myrtales as a sister to the eurosids rather than inside them. The discrepancy is thought to have due to the difference between using a large number of taxa versus using a large number of genes for constructing a phylogeny. Conti, E. Erikkson, T. Schonenberger, J. Sytsma, K. J. Baum, early Tertiary Out-of-India Dispersal of Crypteroniaceae, Evidence from Phylogeny and Molecular Dating. Schönenberger, J. Conti, E. Molecular phylogeny and floral evolution of Penaeaceae, Oliniaceae, Rhynchocalycaceae, and Alzateaceae
9.
Myrtaceae
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Myrtaceae is the myrtle family, a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pohutukawa, the bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca, allspice, all species are woody, with essential oils, and flower parts in multiples of four or five. One notable character of the family is that the phloem is located on both sides of the xylem, not just outside as in most other plants, the leaves are evergreen, alternate to mostly opposite, simple, and usually with an entire margin. The flowers have a number of five petals, though in several genera the petals are minute or absent. The stamens are usually conspicuous, brightly coloured and numerous. Recent estimates suggest the Myrtaceae include approximately 5950 species in ca 132 genera, the family has a wide distribution in tropical and warm-temperate regions of the world, and are typically common in many of the worlds biodiversity hotspots. Genera with capsular fruits such as Eucalyptus, Corymbia, Angophora, Leptospermum, genera with fleshy fruits have their greatest concentrations in eastern Australia and Malesia and the Neotropics. Eucalyptus is a dominant, nearly ubiquitous genus in the more parts of Australia. Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest flowering plant in the world, other important Australian genera are Callistemon, Syzygium, and Melaleuca. Species of the genus Osbornia, native to Australasia, are mangroves, eugenia, Myrcia, and Calyptranthes are among the larger genera in the neotropics. Historically, the Myrtaceae were divided into two subfamilies, subfamily Myrtoideae was recognized as having fleshy fruits and opposite, entire leaves. Most genera in this subfamily have one of three recognized types of embryos. The genera of Myrtoideae can be difficult to distinguish in the absence of mature fruits. Myrtoideae are found worldwide in subtropical and tropical regions, with centers of diversity in the Neotropics, northeastern Australia, in contrast, subfamily Leptospermoideae was recognized as having dry, dehiscent fruits and leaves arranged spirally or alternate. The Leptospermoideae are found mostly in Australasia, with a centre of diversity in Australia, many genera in Western Australia have greatly reduced leaves and flowers typical of more xeric habitats. Thus, many workers are now using a recent analysis by Wilson et al. as a point to test further analyses of the family. The genera Heteropyxis and Psiloxylon have been separated as separate families by many authors in the past as Heteropyxidaceae and Psiloxylaceae, however, Wilson et al. included them in Myrtaceae. These two genera are believed to be the earliest arising and surviving lineages of Myrtaceae
10.
Angophora
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Angophora is a genus of flowering plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, described as a genus in 1797. It is endemic to Australia, where species are distributed in Queensland, New South Wales, the centre of diversity is along the northern and central coast of New South Wales. Angophora is closely related to Corymbia and Eucalyptus, and all three genera are often referred to as eucalypts, collectively the eucalypts, or gum trees, dominate many Australian ecosystems. Angophora can be distinguished from other eucalypts by its oppositely arranged leaves and flowers which lack opercula, taxonomists have long recognised the relationships between the eucalypt taxa, but have not agreed upon a classification scheme. Some have proposed merging Angophora and Corymbia into genus Eucalyptus as subgenera, some authors maintain Angophora as a genus, while others continue to debate the issue. Among the eucalypts, Angophora species were nicknamed apples by European settlers, many are still known commonly as apples today. The opposite leaves are hairy and glandular when new, and mostly hairless when mature, the inflorescence is an arrangement of several clusters of 3 to 7 flowers each. The flower has 4 or 5 small, green sepals, overlapping white petals, the fruit is a papery or slightly woody capsule, usually with thick ribs and a coat of hairs. The following are accepted species, Angophora bakeri, a tree up to 10 metres tall. A tree up to 30 meters tall with smooth, scaly bark, - NSW Angophora × clelandii - hybrid A. bakeri × A. hispida - NSW Angophora crassifolia, a tree up to 15 meters tall endemic to New South Wales. - NSW Angophora × dichromophloia - hybrid, A. costata × A. hispida - NSW Angophora euryphylla, - NSW Angophora exul, a threatened species known only from a small area at Gibraltar Rock, New South Wales. A tree up to 8 meters tall with compound, terminal inflorescences, a common tree up to 30 metres tall - NSW, Qld, and Vic Angophora hispida. A tree or mallee up to 7 meters tall, - NSW Angophora inopina, a vulnerable species. A tree up to 8 metres tall, - NSW Angophora leiocarpa, a tree up to 25 meters tall. A multi-stemmed tree up to 15 metres tall, - NSW, Qld Angophora paludosa, a tree up to 15 metres tall. - NSW Angophora robur, a vulnerable species, a tree up to 10 metres tall. A tree up to 20 metres tall, - NSW, Qld Angophora woodsiana, a tree up to 20 metres tall. Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, Australian National Herbarium
11.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
12.
Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
13.
Sydney
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Sydney /ˈsɪdni/ is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australias east coast, the metropolis surrounds the worlds largest natural harbour, residents of Sydney are known as Sydneysiders. The Sydney area has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years, the first British settlers, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, arrived in 1788 to found Sydney as a penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Since convict transportation ended in the century, the city has transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural. As at June 2016 Sydneys estimated population was 5,005,358, in the 2011 census,34 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, representing many different nationalities and making Sydney one of the most multicultural cities in the world. There are more than 250 different languages spoken in Sydney and about one-third of residents speak a language other than English at home and it is classified as an Alpha+ World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has a market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing. Its gross regional product was $337 billion in 2013, the largest in Australia, there is a significant concentration of foreign banks and multinational corporations in Sydney and the city is promoted as one of Asia Pacifics leading financial hubs. Its natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, man-made attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Tower and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are also well known to international visitors. The first people to inhabit the now known as Sydney were indigenous Australians having migrated from northern Australia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity first started to occur in the Sydney area from around 30,735 years ago, the earliest British settlers called them Eora people. Eora is the term the indigenous used to explain their origins upon first contact with the British. Its literal meaning is from this place, prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in Sydney from as many as 29 different clans. Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan, the principal language groups were Darug, Guringai, and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells. Development has destroyed much of the citys history including that of the first inhabitants, there continues to be examples of rock art and engravings located in the protected Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The first meeting between the people and the British occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula. He noted in his journal that they were confused and somewhat hostile towards the foreign visitors, Cook was on a mission of exploration and was not commissioned to start a settlement
14.
ROTAP
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Rare or Threatened Australian Plants, usually abbreviated to ROTAP, is a list of rare or threatened Australian plant taxa. Developed and maintained by the CSIRO, the most recent edition lists 5031 taxa, the list uses a binary coding system based on the IUCN Red List categories for Presumed Extinct, Endangered, Vulnerable, Rare or Poorly Known. However, it provides for additional information such as geographic range. It was first compiled in 1979, and published in 1981, in its early days it was the only nationally recognised list of threatened plants, although it had no legal status. When the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992 was proclaimed, the ROTAP list was used as a basis for the publication of schedules to the Act, a third list was produced by ANZECC from 1996. In 2000, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 was proclaimed and this superseded the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992, and published a single list of threatened flora which largely superseded the three lists then current. As the EPBC list has legal force, the ROTAP list is now little used and it continues to be maintained, however, and is often used and referred to in scientific publications. List of threatened flora of Australia Threatened fauna of Australia Briggs, JD, Leigh, CSIRO Plant Industry & the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research
15.
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
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The Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is a protected national park that is located in New South Wales, Australia. The 14, 977-hectare national park is situated 25 kilometres north of Sydney located largely within the Ku-ring-gai, Hornsby, Warringah, the villages of Cottage Point, Appletree Bay, and Bobbin Head are located within park boundaries. An isolated portion of the park, Barrenjoey Headland, is located to the north of Palm Beach east of the primary park body and is home to Barrenjoey Lighthouse, Ku-ring-gai Chase is also officially classed as a suburb by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Picnic, boating, and fishing facilities can be throughout the park. There are many walking tracks in Ku-ring-gai, especially through the Duffys Forest. Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park was added to the Australian National Heritage List in December 2006, the first inhabitants of the area were the indigenous Garigal people. The rugged landscape provided abundant food and adequate shelter for the aboriginals, more than 800 Aboriginal sites have been found in the park. These include rock engravings, cave drawings, paintings and stencils, axe grinding grooves, the park was first declared in 1894. The television series, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was shot in northern Sydney at Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, bushfires ravaged the park in January 1994. Many of the attractions are accessible only by walking track. Many kilometres of park front the southern shoreline of Broken Bay making it a place to explore by boat. Rail access is provided at Mount Colah, Mount Kuring-gai, Berowra, all roads in the area are sealed and all have collection gates where a daily fee is payable. The area contains many trails and a walk through mangroves. Aboriginal engravings can be seen in the area and this is the only place in the entire national park where camping is allowed. Access is either by West Head Road via The Basin Track or on a ferry from Palm Beach Wharf, West Head is a headland at the north eastern tip of the National Park. A lookout, with views of Barrenjoey, Palm Beach and Broken Bay, has built on West Head. The Flint & Steel Guesthouse was one of the first buildings on West Head, Barrenjoey is a locality of Palm Beach. It is a headland and unusual amongst the National Parks features as it is not joined to the rest of the Park by land but separated by 1 kilometer of water, the Pittwater
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Laterite
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Laterite is a soil and rock type rich in iron and aluminium, and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of iron oxide content. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the parent rock. Tropical weathering is a process of chemical weathering which produces a wide variety in the thickness, grade, chemistry. The majority of the area containing laterites is between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Laterite has commonly referred to as a soil type as well as being a rock type. This and further variation in the modes of conceptualizing about laterite has led to calls for the term to be abandoned altogether, at least a few researchers specializing in regolith development have considered that hopeless confusion has evolved around the name. Historically, laterite was cut into shapes and used in monument-building. After 1000 CE, construction at Angkor Wat and other southeast Asian sites changed to rectangular temple enclosures made of laterite, brick, since the mid-1970s, some trial sections of bituminous-surfaced, low-volume roads have used laterite in place of stone as a base course. Thick laterite layers are porous and slightly permeable, so the layers can function as aquifers in rural areas, locally available laterites have been used in an acid solution, followed by precipitation to remove phosphorus and heavy metals at sewage-treatment facilities. Laterites are a source of ore, the ore exists largely in clay minerals and the hydroxides, gibbsite, boehmite, and diaspore. In Northern Ireland they once provided a source of iron. Laterite ores also were the major source of nickel. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton first described and named a laterite formation in southern India in 1807 and he named it laterite from the Latin word later, which means a brick, this highly compacted and cemented soil can easily be cut into brick-shaped blocks for building. The word laterite has been used for variably cemented, sesquioxide-rich soil horizons, a sesquioxide is an oxide with three atoms of oxygen and two metal atoms. It has also used for any reddish soil at or near the Earths surface. Laterite covers are thick in the areas of the Western Ethiopian Shield, on cratons of the South American Plate. In Madhya Pradesh, India, the laterite which caps the plateau is 30 m thick, laterites can be either soft and easily broken into smaller pieces, or firm and physically resistant
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Angophora bakeri
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Angophora bakeri, known as the narrow-leaved or small-leaved apple, is a common woodland and forest shrub or tree of eastern Australia. It grows between two and ten metres tall on dry sandy soils, named in honour of Richard Thomas Baker. Leaves are narrow lanceolate in shape,6 to 10 cm long and 0.5 to 1 cm wide
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Eucalyptus
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Eucalyptus /ˌjuːkəˈlɪptəs/ LHeritier 1789 is a diverse genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus and most are native to Australia, one species, Eucalyptus deglupta, ranges as far north as the Philippines. Of the 15 species found outside Australia, just nine are exclusively non-Australian, species of eucalyptus are cultivated widely in the tropical and temperate world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, China, and the Indian subcontinent. However, the range over which many eucalypts can be planted in the zone is constrained by their limited cold tolerance. Australia is covered by 92,000,000 hectares of eucalypt forest, Eucalyptus is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as eucalypts, the others being Corymbia and Angophora. Many species, though by no means all, are known as gum trees because they exude copious kino from any break in the bark. The generic name is derived from the Greek words ευ well and καλύπτω to cover, Eucalyptus oil finds many uses like in aromatherapy, as a cure for joint pains. Eucalyptus trees show allelopathic effects, they release compounds which inhibit other plant species from growing nearby, on warm days, eucalyptus forests are sometimes shrouded in a smog-like mist of vaporised volatile organic compounds, the Australian Blue Mountains take their name from the haze. A mature eucalyptus may take the form of a low shrub or a large tree. The species can be divided into three main habits and four size categories, as a generalisation forest trees are single-stemmed and have a crown forming a minor proportion of the whole tree height. Woodland trees are single-stemmed, although they may branch at a distance above ground level. Many mallee trees may be so low-growing as to be considered a shrub, two other tree forms are notable in Western Australia and described using the native names mallet and marlock. The mallet is a small to medium-sized tree that does not produce lignotubers and has a long trunk. This is the habit of mature healthy specimens of Eucalyptus occidentalis, E. astringens, E. spathulata, E. gardneri, E. dielsii, E. forrestiana, E. salubris, E. clivicola. The smooth bark of mallets often has a satiny sheen and may be white, cream, grey, green, or copper. The term marlock has been used, in Forest Trees of Australia, it is defined as a small tree without lignotubers. They usually grow in more or less pure stands, clearly recognisable examples are stands of E. platypus, E. vesiculosa, and the unrelated E. stoatei
19.
Type (biology)
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In biology, a type is a particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralize the defining features of that particular taxon, in older usage, a type was a taxon rather than a specimen. Types are of significance to biologists, especially to taxonomists. Types are usually physical specimens that are kept in a museum or herbarium research collection, but failing that, describing species and appointing type specimens is part of scientific nomenclature and alpha taxonomy. If there is more than one named type that all appear to be the same taxon, then the oldest name takes precedence, and is considered to be the correct name of the material in hand. If on the hand the taxon appears never to have been named at all, then the scientist or another qualified expert picks a type specimen and publishes a new name. This process is crucial to the science of biological taxonomy, peoples ideas of how living things should be grouped change and shift over time. How do we know that what we call Canis lupus is the thing, or approximately the same thing. Depending on the nomenclature applied to the organism in question, a type can be a specimen, a culture. Some codes consider a subordinate taxon to be the type, for example, in the research collection of the Natural History Museum in London, there is a bird specimen numbered 1886.6.24.20. This is a specimen of a kind of commonly known as the spotted harrier. This particular specimen is the holotype for that species, the name Circus assimilis refers, by definition and that species was named and described by Jardine and Selby in 1828, and the holotype was placed in the museum collection so that other scientists might refer to it as necessary. Note that at least for type specimens there is no requirement for an individual to be used. The usage of the type is somewhat complicated by slightly different uses in botany. In the PhyloCode, type-based definitions are replaced by phylogenetic definitions, in some older taxonomic works the word type has sometimes been used differently. … Après avoir étudié ces diverses formes, jen arrivai à les considérer comme appartenant à un seul et même type spécifique, translation, This single character permits distinguish this type from all other species of the section. After studying the diverse forms, I came to them as belonging to the one. In botanical nomenclature, a type, is that element to which the name of a taxon is permanently attached, in botany a type is either a specimen or an illustration
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A3 (Sydney)
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The A3 is a major metropolitan arterial route in Sydney. It was formerly designated as Metroad 3, the A3 runs from its intersection with the A8 at Mona Vale at the north end, to the southerly of its two intersections with A1, the Princes Highway, at Blakehurst the south end. The highest speed limit on the is 90 km/h on Mona Vale Road and it is a major connector between most of the major radial routes emanating from central Sydney, and a major link between the northern and southern parts of the Sydney tolled orbital freeway. It is the most direct, although not necessarily the quickest, most of the route has been progressively upgraded to three lanes in each direction. Sections which are two lanes in each direction remain, between Beverley Hills and South Hurstville, along Homebush Bay Drive, and between St Ives and Terry Hills. Between Mona Vale and Terry Hills, most of the section of Mona Vale Road is only 1 lane in each direction. Much of the route becomes very congested in peak hour, the name A3 is the route allocation for the route as a whole, not a road name. The A3 route runs along a series of differently named roads. It was subsequently re-designated State Route 33 between 1974 and 1993, and then re-designated Metroad 3 after April 1993. It is the one of Sydneys Metroad routes that has not changed alignment since the Metroad system was adopted in 1993. In August 2013, as part of the alphanumeric route scheme, many projects have been undertaken over the ensuing decades to widen most of the route in stages to three lanes each way, although no proper freeway sections have ever been constructed. The deviated route includes Homebush Bay Drive, Centenary Drive, the road upgrades, new bridges and connections for this deviation were completed in stages between 1983 and 1998. This replaced the route along Concord Road, Coronation Parade, and Punchbowl Road. The original route was subsequently give the route allocation State Route 27 which was decommissioned in 2004
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Terrey Hills, New South Wales
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Terrey Hills is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 25 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Warringah Council. It is part of the Northern Beaches region, Terrey Hills is also considered to be part of the Forest District, colloquially known as The Forest. Terrey Hills is a leafy suburb and in some areas semi-rural. Terrey Hills owes its name to the two original land holders Samuel Hills and Obediah James Terrey, Obediah Terrey acquired 640 acres in 1881 and Samuel Hills owned 100 acres nearby. The area was used by Aborigines prior to European settlement, one set of carvings is located near Larool Road and depicts hunting scenes with kangaroos, human figures and footprints. Terrey Hills Post Office opened on 17 June 1935, for the older history, Terrey Hills is noted as the laterite capital of the Sydney Basin for those interested in how laterite forms. The laterite of Terrey Hills was used for early road-making and also has used for rock wall coastal defence at Collaroy Beach. It is the place in New South Wales where fossils have been noted in laterite. A small struggle has been ongoing for years to protect the laterite exposure at Tumbledown Dick from the announced effects of Mona Vale road widening plans. The laterite was worked during the Great Depression when Australia had one third of the out of work. The Warringah Shire Quarry or gravel pit at Terrey Hills was an important place for the distribution of government relief work funding. In this it is noted that men were given work at the rate of two weeks on and one off, whereas the single men worked at the gravel pit at the rate of one week on. Apart from this there was little other work available at the time. For a weeks work digging laterite gravel with pick and shovel there was received £1, to be paid that, they had to walk to the relief office at Narrabeen. Besides digging the laterite, the workers based at Terrey Hills also built or improved the roads from Terrey Hills to Mona Vale, Cottage Point and Coal. Owing to its elevation and close proximity to the ocean, the station at Terrey Hills records the mildest temperatures of any weather station in the Greater Sydney region. Under Köppens scheme, the suburb has a humid subtropical and oceanic climate with warm summers. The shopping centre includes an IGA supermarket, a Post Office, specialty shops, Warringah Council has its Volunteer Services Centre located in Thompson Drive
22.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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Wikidata
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Wikidata is a collaboratively edited knowledge base operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is intended to provide a source of data which can be used by Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. This is similar to the way Wikimedia Commons provides storage for files and access to those files for all Wikimedia projects. Wikidata is powered by the software Wikibase, Wikidata is a document-oriented database, focused on items. Each item represents a topic and is identified by a number, prefixed with the letter Q—for example. This enables the basic information required to identify the topic the item covers to be translated without favouring any language, information is added to items by creating statements. Statements take the form of pairs, with each statement consisting of a property. The creation of the project was funded by donations from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, at this time, only the first phase was available. Historically, a Wikipedia article would include a list of links, being links to articles on the same topic in other editions of Wikipedia. Initially, Wikidata was a repository of interlanguage links. No Wikipedia language editions were able to access Wikidata, so they needed to continue to maintain their own lists of interlanguage links, on 14 January 2013, the Hungarian Wikipedia became the first to enable the provision of interlanguage links via Wikidata. This functionality was extended to the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedias on 30 January, to the English Wikipedia on 13 February, on 23 September 2013, phase 1 went live on Wikimedia Commons. The first aspects of the second phase were deployed on 4 February 2013, the values were initially limited to two data types, with more data types to follow later. The first new type, string, was deployed on 6 March, the ability of the various language editions of Wikipedia to access data added to Wikidata as part of phase two was rolled out progressively between 27 March and 25 April 2013. On 16 September 2015, Wikidata began allowing so-called arbitrary access, for example, in the past the article about Berlin you could not access data about Germany, but with arbitrary access it could. On 27 April 2016 arbitrary access was activated on Wikimedia Commons, phase 3 will involve database querying and the creation of lists based on data stored on Wikidata. As of October 2016 two tools for querying Wikidata were available, AutoList and PetScan, additionally to a public SPARQL endpoint, there is concern that the project is being influenced by lobbying companies, PR professionals and search engine optimizers. As of December 2015, according to Wikimedia statistics, half of the information in Wikidata is unsourced, another 30% is labeled as having come from Wikipedia, but with no indication as to which article
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Encyclopedia of Life
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The Encyclopedia of Life is a free, online collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing databases and from contributions by experts and non-experts throughout the world and it aims to build one infinitely expandable page for each species, including video, sound, images, graphics, as well as text. In addition, the Encyclopedia incorporates content from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the project was initially backed by a US$50 million funding commitment, led by the MacArthur Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, who provided US$20 million and US$5 million, respectively. The project was led by Jim Edwards and the development team by David Patterson. Today, participating institutions and individual donors continue to support EOL through financial contributions, EOL went live on 26 February 2008 with 30,000 entries. The site immediately proved to be popular, and temporarily had to revert to demonstration pages for two days when it was overrun by traffic from over 11 million views it received. The site relaunched on 5 September 2011 with a redesigned interface, eOLv2 is redesigned to enhance usability and encourage contributions and interactions among users. The product is also internationalized with interfaces provided for English, German, Spanish, French, Galician, Serbian, Macedonian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian language speakers. On 16 January 2014, EOL launched TraitBank, a searchable, open digital repository for organism traits, measurements, interactions, information about many species is already available from a variety of sources, in particular about the megafauna. Gathering currently available data on all 1.9 million species will take about 10 years, as of September 2011, EOL had information on more than 700,000 species available, along with more than 600,000 photos and millions of pages of scanned literature. The initial focus has been on living species but will later include extinct species, as the discovery of new species is expected to continue, the encyclopedia will grow continuously. The goal of EOL is to serve as a resource for the public, enthusiastic amateurs, educators, students. The Encyclopedia of Life has content partners around the world who share information through the EOL platform, including Wikipedia and its interface is translated at translatewiki. net. The Encyclopedia of Life – Introductory video on YouTube from May 2007
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Global Biodiversity Information Facility
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The Global Biodiversity Information Facility is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by institutions from around the world. Data available through the GBIF portal are primarily distribution data on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes for the world, the mission of the Global Biodiversity information Facility is to facilitate free and open access to biodiversity data worldwide to underpin sustainable development. ABCD Schema Atlas of Living Australia Darwin Core Global biodiversity Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum GBIF website Short description of GBIF
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International Plant Names Index
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The International Plant Names Index describes itself as a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes. Coverage of plant names is best at the rank of species, the IPNI also maintains a list of standardized author abbreviations. These were initially based on Brummitt & Powell, but new names, IPNI is the product of a collaboration between The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The Harvard University Herbaria, and the Australian National Herbarium. The IPNI database is a collection of the names registered by the three cooperating institutions and they work towards standardizing the information, the standard of author abbreviations recommended by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants is Brummitt and Powell’s Authors of Plant Names. A digital and continually updated list of authors and abbreviations can be consulted online at IPNI, the IPNI provides names that have appeared in scholarly publications, with the objective of providing an index of published names rather than prescribing the accepted botanical nomenclature. The Plant List, a project which was unveiled in 2010. The use of IPNI is free of charge, a similar project, which lists names of fungi, is the Index Fungorum. The Plant List Official website of the IPNI Plant Name search – IPNI search for plant names Author search – IPNI search for author names and standard abbreviations
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The Plant List
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The Plant List is a list of botanical names of species of plants created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Missouri Botanical Garden and launched in 2010. It is intended to be comprehensive, that is, deal with all names of species. There is a project called the International Plant Names Index. The IPNI aims to provide details of publication and does not aim to determine which are accepted species names, newly published names are automatically added from IPNI to the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, a database which underlies the Plant List. The Plant List has 1,064,035 scientific plant names of species rank,350,699 are accepted species names, belonging to 642 plant families and 17,020 plant genera. The Plant List accepts approximately 350,699 unique species, with 470,624 synonyms for those species, when The Plant List was launched in 2010, it attracted media attention for its comprehensive approach. Fox News highlighted the number of synonyms encountered, suggesting that this reflected a lack of biodiversity on earth. The Plant List also attracted attention for building on the work of English naturalist Charles Darwin, Kew has added an average of 6,000 species every year since the IK was first published with 400,000 names of species. However, the IK is currently run as part of the IPNI rather than the Plant List. Australian Plant Census Australian Plant Name Index Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, whose Target One states the need for “An online flora of all known plants. ”International Plant Names Index Wikispecies Official website State of the Worlds Plants
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Tree
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In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk. In looser senses, the palms, the tree ferns, bananas. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old, the tallest known tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands 115.6 m high. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years and it is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk and this trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier, below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely, they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. Above ground, the divide into smaller branches and shoots. The shoots typically bear leaves, which light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the trees growth. Flowers and fruit may also be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones, others, such as tree ferns, trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues, trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. Tropical rainforests are one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as having many other uses. In parts of the world, forests are shrinking as trees are cleared to increase the amount of available for agriculture. Because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always revered, with sacred groves in various cultures. Although tree is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language. In its broadest sense, a tree is any plant with the form of an elongated stem, or trunk. Trees are also defined by height, with smaller plants from 0.5 to 10 m being called shrubs
