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Encephalartos Eugene-maraisii
__NOTOC__ ''Encephalartos eugene-maraisii'' is a species of cycad in the family Zamiaceae. It is endemic to South Africa, where it is limited to Limpopo. It is known as the Waterberg cycad. This plant grows in the sandstone hills of the Waterberg Range at 1400 to 1500 meters in elevation. The habitat is grassland and savanna. This endangered species is threatened by overcollection. This species was named for South African naturalist Eugène Marais.Gray, S. (2013)Soul-brother Eugène N. Marais: Some notes towards a re-edit of his works.''Tydskrif vir letterkunde'', 50(2), 62–80. Description This cycad is tree-like, with a stem up to 2.5 m tall and 30–45 cm wide. Its leaves are bluish or silvery, 100–150 cm long, and have a strong keel. The leaflets are lanceolate, 15–20 cm long, and arranged oppositely along the rachis at a 45–80° angle. They have smooth margins, although the lower leaflets may have a single spine. This species is dioecious, with brown, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inez Clare Verdoorn
Inez Clare Verdoorn (15 June 1896 – 2 April 1989) was a South African botanist and taxonomist, noted for her major revisions of plant families and genera. She is also a niece of Eugène Marais, Eugene Nielen Marais, lawyer, Natural history, naturalist, poet and writer. She matriculated in 1916 from Loreto Convent School, Pretoria, Loreto Convent School in Pretoria, worked for a while in the office of the Controller and Auditor General before being appointed in 1917 as a herbarium assistant at the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology. Between 1925 and 1927 she worked at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kew as liaison officer for the National Herbarium. On her return to Pretoria, she assumed charge of the herbarium and was promoted to Senior Professional Officer in 1944. Despite having arrived at retirement age in 1951, Verdoorn opted to work on as a temporary staff member until 1968, and thereafter as an unpaid research worker. She has more than 200 botanical publications to her c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grassland
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceous plant, herbs. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on Earth and dominate the landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area. Definitions Included among the variety of definitions for grasslands are: * "...any plant community, including harvested forages, in which grasses and/or legumes make up the dominant vegetation." * "...terrestrial ecosystems dominated by herbaceous and shrub vegetation, and maintained by fire, grazing, drought and/or freezing temperatures." (Pilot Assessm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of The Northern Provinces
Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora as in the terms ''gut flora'' or ''skin flora'' for purposes of specificity. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Encephalartos
''Encephalartos'' is a genus of cycad native to Africa. Several species of ''Encephalartos'' are commonly referred to as bread trees, bread palms or kaffir bread, since a bread-like starchy food can be prepared from the centre of the stem. The genus name is derived from the Greek language, Greek words ''en'' (within), ''kephalē'' (head), and ''artos'' (bread), referring to the use of the pith to make food. They are, in evolutionary terms, some of the most primitive living gymnosperms. All the species are endangered, some critically, due to their exploitation by collectors and muti, traditional medicine gatherers. The whole genus is listed under CITES Appendix I which prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except for certain non-commercial motives, such as scientific research. Description Several of the species possess stout trunks. In ''Encephalartos cycadifolius, E. cycadifolius'', the main trunks are up to high, and several of them may be united at a base ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarcotesta
The sarcotesta is a fleshy seedcoat, a type of testa. Examples of seeds with a sarcotesta are pomegranate, ginkgo ''Ginkgo'' is a genus of non-flowering seed plants, assigned to the gymnosperms. The scientific name is also used as the English common name. The order to which the genus belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, , and ''Ginkgo'' is n ... and some cycad seeds. The sarcotesta of pomegranate seeds consists of epidermal cells derived from the integument, and there are no arils on these seeds. References External links * Fruit morphology Plant anatomy {{Plant-morphology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugène Marais
Eugène Nielen Marais (; 9 January 1871 – 29 March 1936) was a South African lawyer, naturalist, and important writer and poète maudit in the Second Language Movement of Afrikaans literature. Since his death by his own hand, Marais has been widely hailed as a literary and scientific genius and a cultural hero of the Afrikaner people. His early years, before and during the Boer War Marais was born in Pretoria, the thirteenth and last child of Jan Christiaan Nielen Marais and Catharina Helena Cornelia van Niekerk. He attended school in Pretoria, Boshof and Paarl, and much of his early education was in English, as were his earliest poems. He matriculated at the age of sixteen. His family fluently spoke Afrikaans, Dutch, and English. In Marais's early teens, he started writing English poetry and greedily devoured the verse of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Robert Burns, the Lake poets, and the English Romantics. After leaving school, he worked in Pretoria as a lega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endangered Species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, invasive species, and climate change. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List lists the global conservation status of many species, and various other agencies assess the status of species within particular areas. Many nations have laws that protect conservation-reliant species which, for example, forbid hunting, restrict land development, or create protected areas. Some endangered species are the target of extensive conservation efforts such as captive breeding and habitat restoration. Human activity is a significant cause in causing some species to become endangered. Conservation status The conservation status of a species indicates the likelihood that it will become extinct. Multiple factors are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savanna
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. Four savanna forms exist; ''savanna woodland'' where trees and shrubs form a light canopy, ''tree savanna'' with scattered trees and shrubs, ''shrub savanna'' with distributed shrubs, and ''grass savanna'' where trees and shrubs are mostly nonexistent.Smith, Jeremy M.B.. "savanna". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Sep. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/science/savanna/Environment. Accessed 17 September 2022. Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density. It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests.Manoel Cláudio da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterberg Biosphere
The Waterberg () is a mountainous massif of approximately in north Limpopo Province, South Africa. The average height of the mountain range is 600 m with a few peaks rising up to 2,000 m above sea level. Vaalwater town is located just north of the mountain range. The extensive rock formation was shaped by hundreds of millions of years of riverine erosion to yield diverse bluff and butte landform.C. Michael Hogan, Mark L. Cooke and Helen Murray, ''The Waterberg Biosphere'', Lumina Technologies, 22 May 2006. The ecosystem can be characterised as a dry deciduous forest or Bushveld. Within the Waterberg there are archaeological finds dating to the Stone Age, and nearby are early evolutionary finds related to the origin of humans. Waterberg (Thaba Meetse) is the first region in the northern part of South Africa to be named as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. Geology The underlying rock formation derives from the Kaapvaal craton, formed as a precursor island roughly 2.7 billion yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology (biology), morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, palaeontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. About 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a binomial nomenclature, two-part name, a "binomen". The first part of a binomen is the name of a genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name (zoology), specific name or the specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar, because they are the most resistant minerals to the weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be imparted any color by impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Because sandstone beds can form highly visible cliffs and other topography, topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have become strongly identified with certain regions, such as the red rock deserts of Arches National Park and other areas of the Southwestern United States, American Southwest. Rock formations composed of sandstone usually allow the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limpopo
Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga language, Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mountainous vicinity and named the area after their leader. The Lebombo mountains are also named after them. The river has been called the Vhembe by local Venda communities of the area. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while the provincial legislature is situated in Lebowakgomo. The province is made up of three former Bantustan, Bantustans of Lebowa, Gazankulu and Venda and part of the former Transvaal (province), Transvaal province. The Limpopo province was established as one of nine provinces after the 1994 South African general election. The province's name was first "Northern Transvaal", later changed to "Northern Province" on 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
