1.
Aesculus
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The genus Aesculus, with varieties called buckeye and horse chestnut, comprises 13–19 species of flowering plants in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. They are trees and shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with six species native to North America, Aesculus exhibits a classical arcto-Tertiary distribution. Linnaeus named the genus Aesculus after the Roman name for an edible acorn, common names for these trees include buckeye and horse chestnut. Some are also called white chestnut or red chestnut, in Britain, they are sometimes called conker trees because of their link with the game of conkers, played with the seeds, also called conkers. Aesculus species have stout shoots with resinous, often sticky, buds, opposite, palmately divided leaves, flowers are showy, insect- or bird-pollinated, with four or five petals fused into a lobed corolla tube, arranged in a panicle inflorescence. Flowering starts after 80–110 growing degree days, the fruit matures to a capsule, 2–5 cm diameter, usually globose, containing one to three seeds per capsule. Capsules containing more than one seed result in flatness on one side of the seeds, the point of attachment of the seed in the capsule shows as a large circular whitish scar. The capsule epidermis has spines in some species, while other capsules are warty or smooth, at maturity, the capsule splits into three sections to release the seeds. Aesculus seeds were eaten, after leaching, by the Jōmon people of Japan over about four millennia. All parts of the buckeye or horse chestnut tree are moderately toxic, the toxin affects the gastrointestinal system, causing gastrointestinal disturbances. The USDA notes that the toxicity is due to saponin aescin and glucoside aesculin, native Americans used to crush the seeds and the resulting mash was thrown into still or sluggish waterbodies to stun or kill fish. They then boiled and drained the fish at least three times to dilute the toxins effects, new shoots from the seeds also have been known to kill grazing cattle. The yellow buckeye Aesculus flava is also an ornamental tree with yellow flowers. Among the smaller species, the bottlebrush buckeye Aesculus parviflora also makes a very interesting, interpretations of the tree leaves can be seen in architectural details in the Reims Cathedral. Media related to Aesculus at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Aesculus at Wikispecies Germplasm Resources Information Network, Aesculus Forest, F. Drouin, J. N. Charest, R. Brouillet, a morphological phylogenetic analysis of Aesculus L. and Billia Peyr. Aesculus glabra Kings American Dispensatory Winter ID pictures
2.
Phyllocnistis hyperpersea
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Phyllocnistis hyperpersea is a moth of the Gracillariidae family. It is found from Nansemond and Virginia Beach Counties in Virginia and it might have a much wider range, since material which might belong to this species has been recorded from Honduras and Mexico. The length of the forewings is 1. 9–2.2 mm, adults have been recorded in September, December, February, March, April, May and June in southern Florida and in June in southern Virginia. The larvae feed on Persea americana and Persea borbonia and they mine the leaves of their host plant. The mine has the form of a long, slender, serpentine gallery, with a broad, dark brownish, median frass trail. The egg is deposited on the leaf surface away from the midrib. Mines begin on one side of the blade, but after much of one side is consumed, the median frass line is unusually broad for a species of Phyllocnistis, resembling more that of the Chilean genus Prophyllocnistis. Pupation occurs in the lamina, away from the edge in a circular nidus. The serpentine portion of the mine begins as a tract of about 0.3 mm wide. The median frass line is one fourth of the width in the early instars. The specific name is derived from the Greek, hyper and the plant name of its host, Persea
3.
Persea borbonia
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Persea borbonia is a species of plant in the Lauraceae family, with several common names including redbay, tisswood, scrubbay, shorebay, and swampbay. It is one of about 150 species in the evergreen tree genus Persea and it is an evergreen tree that is native to the Southeastern United States. Persea borbonia can be present as either a tree or a large shrub. It has evergreen leaves that are about 3 to 6 inches long with a lance shape, the leaves are arranged alternately and emit a spicy smell when crushed. The leaves vary in color from green to dark green. These trees are capable of producing fruit that is a small, redbay is a perennial, with a non-herbaceous stem that is lignified. Persea borbonia grows in the margins of the southeastern United States. It grows in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina and it also grows in the Bahamas and is cultivated in Hawaii. It usually grows on the borders of swamp land, unfortunately, due to an invasion of redbay ambrosia beetle in the Southern United States the tree is slowly dying out. The beetle was discovered in 2002 near Savannah, Georgia and it carries a laurel wilt fungal disease that is responsible for killing Redbays. However, foresters agree the species will not go extinct in the southeastern U. S. since it appears to rejuvenate to some degree on its own. Additionally, there appears to be an invitro programs that have been successful in one area in Georgia. The plant is not widely used in the present day for medicinal uses, however the Seminole Indians used to use it as an emetic, the dried up leaves can be used as a condiment. The wood is hard and strong, which can be used to build boats, cabinets, the wood is not traded on a very large scale so it is confined to the regions where P. borbonia grows. Cultivation Persea borbonia is cultivated as a tree for gardens. Wildlife Deer and bears also eat the leaves and fruits of redbay, birds and turkey only eat the fruit of the redbay
4.
Gondwana
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In paleogeography, Gondwana, also Gondwanaland, is the name given to an ancient supercontinent. It is believed to have sutured about 600 to 530 million years ago, Gondwana formed prior to Pangaea, and later became part of it. Around 335 to 250 million years ago Gondwana and Laurasia joined together to form the supercontinent Pangaea, Gondwana then separated from Laurasia in the breakup of Pangaea, drifting farther south after the split. Gondwana itself then also broke apart, the continent of Gondwana was named by Austrian scientist Eduard Suess, after the Gondwana region of central northern India which is derived from Sanskrit for forest of the Gonds. The name had previously used in a geological context, first by H. B. From which the Gondwana sedimentary sequences are also described, for example, the plant family Proteaceae, known only from southern South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, is considered to have a Gondwanan distribution. This pattern is considered to indicate an archaic, or relict. The assembly of Gondwana was a protracted process, several orogenies led to its final amalgamation 550 to 500 million years ago at the end of the Ediacaran, and into the Cambrian. These include the Brasiliano Orogeny, the East African Orogeny, the Malagasy Orogeny, the final stages of Gondwanan assembly overlapped with the opening of the Iapetus Ocean between Laurentia and western Gondwana. During this interval, the Cambrian explosion occurred and this is the Famatinian block and it formerly continued the line of the Appalachians southwards. One of the sites of Gondwanan amalgamation was the East African Orogeny. The East African Orogeny at about 650–630 Mya affected a part of Arabia, north-eastern Africa, East Africa. Collins and Windley propose that in this orogeny, Azania collided with the Congo–Tanzania–Bangweulu Block, the later Malagasy orogeny at about 550–515 Mya affected Madagascar, eastern East Africa and southern India. In it, Neoproterozoic India collided with the already combined Azania and Congo–Tanzania–Bangweulu Block, at the same time, in the Kunga Orogeny Neoproterozoic India collided with the Australia/Mawson continent. Other large continental masses, including the core cratons of North America, Europe, when Pangaea broke up, two large masses, Gondwana and Laurasia, were formed. During the late Paleozoic, Gondwana extended from a point at or near the South Pole to near the Equator, across much of Gondwana, the climate was mild. During the Mesozoic, the world was on average warmer than it is today. Gondwana was then host to a variety of flora and fauna for many millions of years
5.
Cryptocarya foveolata
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Cryptocarya foveolata, known as the mountain walnut is a rainforest tree growing at high altitude in eastern Australia. Despite the common name, it belongs to the laurel family, fallen leaves from this tree may be identified by the two glands at the base of the leaf, and by the compact leaf shape and venation. The group of Cryptocarya trees are mostly from the tropics or warmer temperate areas and this tree is unusual as it grows in cooler regions, subject to frost and occasional snow. Its also a tall tree from the Cryptocarya genus. Cryptocarya foveolata grows in rainforests on fertile soils, mostly growing above 600 metres above sea level. Often seen in association with the Antarctic Beech, the natural range of distribution is from Mount Royal in the Barrington Tops to the McPherson Range on the border of Queensland and New South Wales. Cryptocarya foveolata is a small to large tree, occasionally reaching 45 metres in height, the bark is brown, mostly smooth with lines of vertical bumps running up the trunk. The base of the tree is not particularly buttressed, leaves alternate, ovate or elliptical with a prominent tip. Three veined with an easily seen mid vein, raised on the upper and lower side of the leaf, one or two pairs of hollow glands forming at the base of the leaf. One on either side of the midrib, small, cream, flowers form on panicles from December to February. Fruit ripens from October to January, being a fleshy black drupe,12 to 15 mm across, with a single seed inside, around 10 mm in diameter. Like most Australian Cryptocarya fruit, removal of the aril is advised to assist seed germination, around a third of the seeds will germinate. Floyd, A. G. Rainforest Trees of Mainland South-eastern Australia, Inkata Press 1989, ISBN 0-909605-57-2 page 177 Cryptocarya foveolata
6.
Barrington Tops National Park
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The Barrington Tops National Park is a protected national park located in the Hunter Valley, approximately 200 kilometres north of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Gazetted in 1969, the 76, 512-hectare park is situated between Scone, Singleton, Dungog, Gloucester and East Gresford. The park is part of the Barrington Tops group World Heritage Site Gondwana Rainforests of Australia inscribed in 1986 and it is also part of the Barrington Tops and Gloucester Tops Important Bird Area. Barrington Tops is part of the Mount Royal Range, a spur of the Great Dividing Range, erosion has weathered the granite and rounded granite boulders can be seen in some areas of the park. Estimates put the age of the rock at 300 to 400 million years, the climate varies from temperate on the lower altitudes to subalpine at highest elevations. A record low of −17 °C has been registered at 1,500 m above sea level. Rainfalls fluctuate between 750 millimetres in the northwest to more than 2,000 mm in the southeast, the ecology of the national park varies from subtropical rainforests in the gullies to subalpine and alpine regions on the mountain peaks. Snow usually falls on the mountain every year and occasionally snows enough to close roads. Rainfall can exceed 1,500 mm per annum, a large variety of plants and animals reside in the park and the steepness of the terrain ensures that they are not disturbed by humans. The remoteness and inaccessibility of a part of the park has allowed some of the more sensitive animals to remain largely undisturbed. A large number of fauna have been catalogued in the park including some that were thought to be extinct. Some of the common animals include, barking and sooty owls, eastern grey kangaroos, frogs, pademelons, cockatoos, rosellas, kookaburras, bats. It supports an important population of rufous scrub-birds, as well as flame robins, pale-yellow robins, paradise riflebirds, green catbirds, regent bowerbirds. Animals such as quolls, native rats and platypus are reclusive, not all of the animals in the park are desirable, introduced species such as feral horses and feral cats are being removed. The traditional owners of the area are the people of Australia, known as Australian Aborigines, and include the Gringai clan, the Wonnarua people. In 1969 the area between Mount Barrington, Mount Royal and the Gloucester Tops was declared the Barrington Tops National Park, in 1982 it was listed as a World Heritage Area and subsequently a Wilderness Area. Some of the rivers flowing through the Barrington range have been classed as wild rivers meaning they are exceptionally pure, the highest peak is Brumlow Top which rises to a height of 1,586 metres. A number of aircraft have crashed in and around the Barrington Tops, the altitude, frequent fog & cloud, storms and cold weather make this area potentially hazardous to aircraft
7.
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
8.
Larva
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A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a phase of their life cycle. The larvas appearance is very different from the adult form. A larva often has unique structures and organs that do not occur in the adult form and their diet may also be considerably different. Larvae are frequently adapted to separate from adults. For example, some such as tadpoles live almost exclusively in aquatic environments. By living in an environment, larvae may be given shelter from predators. Animals in the stage will consume food to fuel their transition into the adult form. In some species like barnacles, adults are immobile but their larvae are mobile, some larvae are dependent on adults to feed them. In many eusocial Hymenoptera species, the larvae are fed by female workers, in Ropalidia marginata the males are also capable of feeding larvae but they are much less efficient, spending more time and getting less food to the larvae. The larvae of species can become pubescent and do not develop further into the adult form. This is a type of neoteny and it is a misunderstanding that the larval form always reflects the groups evolutionary history. This could be the case, but often the stage has evolved secondarily. In these cases the form may differ more than the adult form from the groups common origin. Within Insects, only Endopterygotes show different types of larvae, several classifications have been suggested by many entomologists, and following classification is based on Antonio Berlese classification in 1913. There are four types of endopterygote larvae types, Apodous larvae - no legs at all and are poorly sclerotized. Based on sclerotization, three forms are recognized. Eucephalous - with well sclerotized head capsule, found in Nematocera, Buprestidae and Cerambycidae families
9.
Insect
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Insects are a class of hexapod invertebrates within the arthropod phylum that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, including more than a million described species, the number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million, and potentially represent over 90% of the differing animal life forms on Earth. Insects may be found in all environments, although only a small number of species reside in the oceans. The life cycles of insects vary but most hatch from eggs, insect growth is constrained by the inelastic exoskeleton and development involves a series of molts. The immature stages can differ from the adults in structure, habit and habitat, Insects that undergo 3-stage metamorphosis lack a pupal stage and adults develop through a series of nymphal stages. The higher level relationship of the Hexapoda is unclear, fossilized insects of enormous size have been found from the Paleozoic Era, including giant dragonflies with wingspans of 55 to 70 cm. The most diverse insect groups appear to have coevolved with flowering plants, adult insects typically move about by walking, flying or sometimes swimming. As it allows for rapid yet stable movement, many insects adopt a tripedal gait in which they walk with their legs touching the ground in alternating triangles, Insects are the only invertebrates to have evolved flight. Many insects spend at least part of their lives under water, with adaptations that include gills. Some species, such as water striders, are capable of walking on the surface of water, Insects are mostly solitary, but some, such as certain bees, ants and termites, are social and live in large, well-organized colonies. Some insects, such as earwigs, show maternal care, guarding their eggs, Insects can communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Male moths can sense the pheromones of female moths over great distances, other species communicate with sounds, crickets stridulate, or rub their wings together, to attract a mate and repel other males. Lampyridae in the beetle order communicate with light, humans regard certain insects as pests, and attempt to control them using insecticides and a host of other techniques. Some insects damage crops by feeding on sap, leaves or fruits, a few parasitic species are pathogenic. Some insects perform complex ecological roles, blow-flies, for example, help consume carrion, Many other insects are considered ecologically beneficial as predators and a few provide direct economic benefit. Silkworms and bees have been used extensively by humans for the production of silk and honey, in some cultures, people eat the larvae or adults of certain insects. Insect first appears documented in English in 1601 in Hollands translation of Pliny, translations of Aristotles term also form the usual word for insect in Welsh, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, etc. The evolutionary relationship of insects to other animal groups remains unclear, in the Pancrustacea theory, insects, together with Entognatha, Remipedia, and Cephalocarida, make up a natural clade labeled Miracrustacea
10.
Leaf
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
