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Lake Coleridge
Lake Coleridge () is in inland Canterbury, New Zealand's South Island. It is located northwest of Methven and has a surface area of . The lake is situated in an over-deepened valley formed by a glacier over 20,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era. It currently has no natural outflows. There is a small settlement at the lake. Ecology Early colonial explorers found the shores of the lake covered in mānuka (or kānuka), kōwhai, cabbage trees, flax and general swamp plants. The lake was also surrounded by southern rātā trees and native beech trees. The lake itself was fairly lacking in aquatic plants because of a lack of nutrients. It was known for a population of large eels. Human activity has significantly changed the ecology. Colonial settlers introduced game fish, including rainbow trout, brown trout, Atlantic salmon and Chinook salmon. Changing water levels caused by the operation of the Coleridge Power Station killed most of the kānuka in 1914 and rata in 1923. In ...
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Coleridge Power Station
The Coleridge Power Station is a hydroelectric facility at Lake Coleridge on the Rakaia River in Canterbury, New Zealand, Canterbury, New Zealand. The power station is owned and operated by Manawa Energy (formerly Trustpower). History Coleridge was New Zealand's first major power station in which the state was involved. It was constructed mainly to supply electricity to Christchurch, with construction beginning in 1911 and completed with three generating units in 1914. For the most part it was built by hand, with some heavier work done by steam shovels. Following its initial construction, the twin 66 Kilovolt, kV transmission lines connecting the power station with Christchurch's Addington, New Zealand, Addington substation were the highest voltage in New Zealand, and the longest at over long. In the early years of the station, demand for electricity in Christchurch grew rapidly and the transmission system extended to reach Rangiora in the north and Oamaru in the south. The l ...
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Selwyn District
Selwyn District is a predominantly rural district in central Canterbury, on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is named after the Selwyn River / Waikirikiri, which is in turn named after Bishop George Selwyn, the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand who, in 1843 and 1844, travelled the length of the country by horse, foot, boat and canoe, leaving in his wake a sprinkling of locations that now bear his name. As of the 2023 census, Selwyn District is the fastest-growing territorial authority in New Zealand, with a population increase of 29% over the prior five years. History The first inhabitants of the area were the Māori who first settled New Zealand from the Cook and Society Islands about 700 years ago. The predominant Māori tribe today, in Selwyn and most of the rest of the South Island, is Ngāi Tahu, whose local marae (meeting house) is at Taumutu near the exit of Lake Ellesmere (Te Waihora). In the late 19th century, European (chiefly British) colonist ...
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Swamp
A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations.Hughes, F.M.R. (ed.). 2003. The Flooded Forest: Guidance for policy makers and river managers in Europe on the restoration of floodplain forests. FLOBAR2, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. 96 p. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammock (ecology), hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerate ...
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Acaena
''Acaena'' is a genus of about 60 species of mainly evergreen, creeping herbaceous perennial plants and subshrubs in the family Rosaceae, native mainly to the Southern Hemisphere, notably New Zealand, Australia and South America, but with a few species extending into the Northern Hemisphere, north to Hawaii ('' A. exigua'') and California ('' A. pinnatifida''). The leaves are alternate, long, and pinnate or nearly so, with 7–21 leaflets. The flowers are produced in a tight globose nflorescence in diameter, with no petals. The fruit is also a dense ball of many seeds; in many (but not all) species the seeds bear a barbed arrowhead point, the seedhead forming a burr which attaches itself to animal fur or feathers for dispersal. Several ''Acaena'' species in New Zealand are known by the common name bidibid. The word is written variously ''bidi-bidi'', ''biddy-biddy'', ''biddi-biddi'', ''biddi-bid'' and a number of other variations. These names are the English rendition of th ...
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Coprosma
''Coprosma'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. It is found in New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Borneo, Java, New Guinea, islands of the Pacific Ocean to Australia and the Juan Fernández Islands. Description The name ''Coprosma'' means "smelling like dung" and refers to the smell (methanethiol) given out by the crushed leaves of a few species. Many species are small shrubs with tiny evergreen leaves, but a few are small trees and have much larger leaves. The flowers have insignificant petals and are wind-pollinated, with long anthers and stigmas. Most species are dioecious, but some (particularly those native to New Zealand) species can sometimes have individuals with perfect flowers. Natural hybrids are common. The fruit is a non-poisonous juicy berry, most often bright orange (but can be dark red or even light blue), containing two small seeds. The orange fruit of the larger species were eaten by Māori children, and are also popular with birds. It is said ...
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Thicket
A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in the shelter of the maternal plants. In some conditions, the formation or spread of thickets may be assisted by human disturbance of an area. Human disturbance and activity within thickets varies based on culture and location. Where a thicket is formed of briar (also spelled brier), which is a common name for any of a number of unrelated thorny plants, it may be called a briar patch. Plants termed briar include species in the genera ''Rosa'' (Rose), ''Rubus'', and ''Smilax''. Characteristics Thickets are characterized by dense plant life, a low closed canopy, deep shale-derived soil, and high levels of soil carbon and nitrogen. Plants present within a thicket generally reach a maximum of 4 to 6 meters in height. The boundaries between a ...
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Ulex
''Ulex'' (commonly known as gorse, furze, or whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. The genus comprises about 20 species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are native to parts of western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia. Gorse is closely related to the brooms, and like them, it has green stems, very small leaves and is adapted to dry growing conditions. However, it differs from the brooms in its extreme thorniness, the shoots being modified into branched thorns long, which almost wholly replace the leaves as the plant's functioning photosynthetic organs. The leaves of young plants are trifoliate, but in mature plants, they are reduced to scales or small spines. All the species have yellow flowers, generally showy, some with a very long flowering season. Species The greatest diversity of ''Ulex'' species is found in the Atlantic portion of the Iberian Peni ...
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Genisteae
Genisteae is a tribe of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in the subfamily Faboideae of the family Fabaceae. It includes a number of well-known plants including broom, lupine (lupin), gorse and laburnum. The tribe's greatest diversity is in the Mediterranean, and most genera are native to Europe, Africa, the Canary Islands, India and southwest Asia. However, the largest genus, ''Lupinus'', is most diverse in North and South America. ''Anarthrophytum'' and ''Sellocharis'' are also South American and ''Argyrolobium'' ranges into India. Description The Genisteae arose 32.3 ± 2.9 million years ago (in the Oligocene). The members of this tribe consistently form a monophyletic clade in molecular phylogenetic analyses. The tribe does not currently have a node-based definition, but several morphological synapomorphies have been identified: … bilabiate calyces with a bifid upper lip and a trifid lower lip, … the lack of an aril, or the presence of an aril b ...
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Discaria Toumatou
''Discaria toumatou'', commonly called matagouri, tūmatakuru, or wild Irishman, is a tangle-branched thorny shrub endemic to New Zealand. It is common throughout the South Island and is less common in the North Island. Taxonomy This species was described by French naturalist Étienne Raoul in 1844 from material collected in Akaroa in association with '' Pteridium esculentum''. The generic name ''Discaria'' refers to disc-shaped flowers. The Latinised specific epithet Raoul chose, ''toumatou'', is a corruption of the word ''tūmatakuru'', one of the Māori names for this species, which he transcribed as "toumatou-kourou". Etymology The English name ''matagouri'' is another corruption of ''tūmatakuru''. Other names in the Māori language include ''tūmatakuri'' and ''tūturi''. Another name is "wild Irishman"; the English writer Samuel Butler in 1863 recalled "…a very uncomfortable prickly shrub, which they call Irishman, and which I do not like the look of at all." De ...
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Chinook Salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Oncorhynchus, Pacific salmon. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other vernacular names for the species include king salmon, quinnat salmon, spring salmon, blackmouth, and tyee salmon. The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name ''chavycha'' (чавыча). Chinook are anadromous fish native to the North Pacific Ocean and the river systems of western North America, ranging from California to Alaska, as well as Asian rivers ranging from northern Japan to the Palyavaam River in Arctic northeast Siberia. They have been introduced to other parts of the world, including New Zealand and Patagonia. Introduced Chinook salmon are thriving in Lake Michigan and Michigan's western rivers. A large Chinook is a prized and sought-after catch for a sporting angler. The flesh of the salmon is also highly valued for its dietary nutritional content, which includes h ...
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Atlantic Salmon
The Atlantic salmon (''Salmo salar'') is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Salmonidae. It is the third largest of the Salmonidae, behind Hucho taimen, Siberian taimen and Pacific Chinook salmon, growing up to a meter in length. Atlantic salmon are found in the northern Atlantic Ocean and in rivers that flow into it. Most populations are anadromous, hatching in streams and rivers but moving out to sea as they grow where they mature, after which the adults seasonally move upstream again to spawn. When the mature fish re-enter rivers to spawn, they change in colour and appearance. Some populations of this fish only migrate to large lakes, and are "landlocked", spending their entire lives in freshwater. Such populations are found throughout the range of the species. Unlike Pacific species of salmon, ''S. salar'' is iteroparous, which means it can survive spawning and return to sea to repeat the process again in another year with 5–10% returning to the sea to spawn again ...
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Brown Trout
The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally as a game fish, even becoming one of the world's worst invasive species outside of its native range. Brown trout are highly adaptable and have evolved numerous ecotypes/subspecies. These include three main ecotypes: a riverine ecotype called river trout or ''Salmo trutta'' morpha ''fario''; a lacustrine ecotype or ''S. trutta'' morpha ''lacustris'', also called the lake trout (not to be confused with the lake trout in North America); and anadromous populations known as the sea trout or ''S. trutta'' morpha ''trutta'', which upon adulthood migrate downstream to the oceans for much of its life and only returns to fresh water to spawn in the gravel beds of headstreams. Sea trout in Ireland and Great Britain have many regional names: ...
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