Staff Club Ferns

I couldn't resist photographing these ferns as they seem so appropriate growing behind a drainpipe with an ivy decoration. Somehow ivy and ferns go together.

They clearly are members of the genus Grammitis which according to the fern book are 'usually epiphytic or rupestral, sometimes terrestrial ferns'. Yes to the epiphytic habit; as to the rupestral, well that drain pipe looks as though it's leaking a bit, maybe it fooled the original spores into thinking that the spot was beside a stream; and yes to the sometimes terrestrial! But, which species I wonder? There are nine in the genus, so leaving out the ones that are alpine, or are not commonly found in this part of NZ, means that it is a choice between billardierei which is the commonest and most variable, and patagonica which is found from Dunedin and Dusky Sound north on rocks mostly in mountain regions but reaching sea level in the far south. I'd quite like it to be patagonica since that has a nicer name and because the photo in the book looks more like mine. But without looking at whether is has hairy sori or not which seems to be the main distinguishing feature between species in this genus, I'll probably have to plump for billardierei purely on the 'most common and variable' epithet.

The ferns, drainpipe and wall belong to the University of Otago Staff Club, originally built as the Dental School in 1907. The main building stone is a basalt, locally called bluestone and is faced with Oamaru limestone. I don't know the varietal name for the red rhododendron, but there are heaps and heaps of them flowering all over the city at the moment.

Reference: New Zealand ferns and allied plants by Patrick J. Brownsey and John C. Smith-Dodsworth. Bateman. 1989

Sleep

No matter what, though, the sun would come up on them tomorrow, followed by the moon, and dogs would chase their own tails and the sky would remain just out of reach. “I didn’t sleep well,” one man across the lane from Elias said to his next-door neighbour. “Well, I know I sure did,” the neighbour said. “I slept like they was payin me to, slept anough for three white women without a care in the world.” “Well,” the first man said, “sounds like you gotta hold a some of my sleep. Better give it back. Better give it back for you wear out my sleep usin it. Give it back.” “Oh, I will,” the neighbour said, laughing, inspecting loose threads on his overalls. “I sure will. Soon as I’m finished. Meantime, I’m gonna use it again tonight. Come for it in the morning.” They both laughed.

The Known World. By Edward P. Jones 2004

To feed or not to feed; part the second.

It seems as though gulls have a sixth sense. When there's food about, they stand hopefully around...

looking a bit pathetic even. Though this one looks as though he's been putting his beak into something sticky. The original sticky-beak perhaps?

But, I was strong-willed and didn't share my lunch. Must say though he looks a bit dejected!

Doings of the Sunbeam (a visit to the photographers)

Every detail of the branches of the photographic business to which they are more especially devoted were freely shown us, and “No Admittance” over the doors of their inmost sanctuaries came to mean for us, “Walk in; you are heartily welcome.”

We should be glad to tell our readers of all that we saw in the two establishments of theirs which we visited, but this would take the whole space which we must distribute among several subdivisions of a subject that offers many points of interest. We must confine ourselves to a few glimpses and sketches.

The guests of the neighboring hotels,as they dally with their morning’s omelet,
little imagine what varied uses come out of the shells which furnished them their anticipatory repast of disappointed chickens. If they had visited Mr. Anthony’s upper rooms, they would have seen a row of young women before certain broad, shallow pans filled with the glairy albumen which once enveloped those potential fowls.

The one next us takes a large sheet of photographic paper, (a paper made in Europe for this special purpose, very thin, smooth, and compact,) and floats it evenly on the surface of the albumen. Presently she lifts’ it very carefully by
the turned-up corners and hangs it bias, as a seamstress might say, that is, cornerwise; on a string, to dry. This “albumenized” paper is sold most extensively to photographers, who find it cheaper to buy than to prepare it. It keeps for a long time uninjured, and is "sensitized” when wanted.

In another portion of the same establishment are great collections of the chemical substances used in photography. To give an idea of the scale on which these are required, we may state that the estimate of the annual consumption of the precious metals for photographic purposes, in this country, is set down at ten tons for silver and half a ton for gold. Vast quantities of the hyposulphite of soda, which, we shall see, plays an important part in the process of preparing the negative plate and finishing the positive print, are also demanded.

Quotation from: "Doings of the Sunbeam" by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Atlantic MonthlyJuly 1863

To feed or not to feed

Everyone knows gulls, of any description, are opportunistic feeders.

There seems little harm in feeding them with the stale ends of bread, at least not here at the Esplanade.

At Dunedin Botanic Gardens there are notices up beside the duckpond, asking that people feed the ducks grain (which can be had from the Visitor Centre, for free). Bread attracts gulls, who bully the poor ducks who then find it difficult to get enough to eat.

At least it has been kept as a polite suggestion which is adhered to. No-one runs the risk of being fined an enormous sum for feeding gulls, as the Aldeburgh Council in Suffolk threaten.

Gardening Time

Yet in the same instant that he reached down to check that his shoelaces were tied, K knew that he would not crawl out and stand up and cross from darkness into firelight to announce himself. He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once the cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children. That was why.

Between this reason and the truth that he would never announce himself, however, lay a gap wider than the distance separating him from the firelight. Always, when he tried to explain himself to himself, there remained a gap, a hole, a darkness before which his understanding baulked, into which it was useless to pour words. The words were eaten up, the gap remained. His was always a story with a hole in it: a wrong story, always wrong.

Quotation from: Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee

Mare's Tails

High altitude cirrus clouds like these are known as mare's tails.

So-called because they look like, well the tails of horses, but why specifically mare's - neither I nor Google know.

Blooming Spring

Across the road from the Moana Pool, there's a row of 'wild' plum trees

I say wild because although they have obvisouly been planted ...

they are not the madly cultivated hybrids with blousy blooms.

Hiding Secrets

He was cold, but he did not notice it. Outside, the sky was pulling up the morning behind a large awning of murky, grey clouds. The boy could hear the soft-boned moans of warm bodies as they rolled out of sleep and out on to the freezing floors. Everywhere, people were huddled in ones and twos, hugging themselves into themselves, happy in the bliss or chaos of their greatest privacy. Soon, they would be up against each other once again, forced to pass judgements, make decisions, reveal what the night had put a pause on, conceal what their dreams had revealed. They would walk around, hiding their secrets inside themselves throughout the whole day. They would never tell of the squalor and violence, nor of the grandeur and charity, which was in each of them to hope for. All would be unexplained. All but that miniature representation of themselves which smoothed them through three meals and a job. They would not shout out; they would not clean the past and start again. But neither would they break with the revelation of their helplessness; neither would they give up out of knowledge of their sadness; they would not abandon their lives, nor would they destroy them. They would withhold their secrets and live another day. They would tread on the decay and look up to the tent of dreams, but they would walk on. They would not crack.

For Want of a Nail. Melvyn Bragg. 1965.

Gulls in the Harbour

You have to use a bit of stealth in approaching these big gulls. (It must be spring as the orange spot under the tip of its bill indicates). Nonchalantly pretending I was interested in something else ...

fooled this gull long enough to take a photo. Then it saw me and ...

of course off it flew!

Witches Broom

Just outside Moana Pool there is a row of silver birch trees, some of which have extraordinary growths on them. As I was taking these photos some passers-by wondered if they were bird's nests, no I patiently explained they were not, they were growths called witches brooms - a type of gall.

It's the tree's response to infection by a fungus - in the UK the commonest species is Taphrina betulina - and it's possibly the same one here. Apparently the infection is passed from tree to tree by a gall-fly. The name stems from the superstition that they were caused when witches flew over the tree.

Gulls on the Helipad

It's amazing what I can find to distract me from my studies. This time is was a bunch of southern black-backed gulls circling over the hospital and its helipad.

Coincidentally there was an item in the local paper yesterday about the nuisance that these big gulls are causing at the Green Island rubbish tip / landfill. The city council has got permission to poison the gulls. Apparently the poison is spread on bread, gulls and other non-target species, eat the bait and keel over with hypothermia. Non-target species - mostly red-billed and black-billed gulls - are then revived by warming. The hope is that black-backed gulls will stop visiting the tip when they see their colleagues keeling over. So too, I suspect will the other gulls.

On closer inspection a man on the roof could be just discerned, he looked to be cleaning something, perhaps he'd disturbed the gulls. There again if the gulls were a more or less permanent feature of the hospital roof, I wouldn't have been so distracted by them. Hope they don't become a permanent feature, it would be bad news for both gulls and helicopters!

Happy Looking Crab

Amongst the debris exposed by an extreme low tide, were several crab carapaces dotted about. Surprisingly, perhaps there were only very few disarticulated legs and pincers, certainly not enough for the carapaces. They belonged to paddle crabs Ovalipes catharus which are common on open sandy beaches. Distributed round New Zealand, including Stewart Island and the Chathams. They are also found in Tasmania though there they tend to be smaller.

This 'smiling face' carapace is about 5-6cm wide which is typical. During the day paddle crabs spend their time in temporary burrows emerging at night to hunt. They are most often found at depths of 10m, but can be found in much deeper offshore waters, up to 100m and are more abundant now than in the 1970s, possibly because their predators have been heavliy fished.

According to the National Aquatic Biodiversity Information System website 'paddle crabs are migratory,these movements being related to breeding, moulting, and feeding. Males and females aggregate and mate in sheltered inshore waters during winter, and it is thought that the females then migrate offshore to deeper waters, generally during September to March.'

Desk Calendar

I knew sooner or later that my desk calendar would display what must be the most famous Japanese painting of all time. The Great Wave of Kanagawa, from the series 36 Views of Mount Fiji was painted by Katsushika Hokusai(1760-1849)in 1832. The one in the calendar is in a private collection. But how many impressions from the woodblocks Hokusai made is unkown. The articifial pigment Prussian Blue was then recently available in Japan and he made good use of it. Some of the versions have lost some vibrancy, not just in the ocean but the sky too which varies from pink to white, depending on how the prints have been stored over the last 180 years.

Interestingly, a month or so ago I came across a fascinating paper in the Notes and records of the Royal Society which posed the question, what kind of wave did Hokusai depict? It has often been used as an example of a tsunami, but the authors argue convincingly that this view is mistaken and that it is a depiction of an exceptionally large storm wave. They present the visual evidence of the three boats and storm clouds surrounding Mount Fuji. The boats are 'oshiokuri-bune, fast cargo boats that were developed for the fishery trade but would carry everything from fresh and dried fish to rice, vegetables, charcoal and logs'. The stormy culumonimbus clouds are hardly discernible in this reproduction of the famous print, but can be seen in the illustration accompanying the article.

The authors' real evidence comes from an in-depth analysis and evaluation of the wave in terms of the fluid dynamics of breaking waves and in particular of the species termed plunging breakers and conclude that Hokusai's wave is a rogue storm wave. Out at sea a tsunami does not break in this fashion, it is only when it reaches the shore that the wave breaks. The sailors are meeting this wave head-on a typical response to storm waves; they have not been caught by surprise.

They further contend that the idea that this print depicts a tsunami is a relatively recent notion, dating back only to the 1960s at most. They surmise that because the name tsunami is Japanese then Hokusai must have illustrated one, and point out that this word-association is potentially damaging. 'It is ironic that after science has abandoned the potentially misleading phrase ‘tidal wave’ in favour of tsunami, this Hokusai image used as a tsunami icon may cause problems with tsunami recognition that the term ‘tidal wave’ would not have done: notably the aspect of identifying the withdrawal of the sea like an exceptionally low tide, in many instances the first hint of a tsunami, which people may take advantage of to save their lives.' Ironic indeed!

Reference: Julyan H.E. Cartwright and Hisami Nakamura, What kind of wave is Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa? Notes Rec. R. Soc. (2009) 63, 119–135.