About the Book
This book brings together for the first time more than 70 of Dr Eric Godley's popular botanical essays, each with carefully chosen illustrations. They cover topics as diverse as: native mistletoes; why plant names change; pohutukawa and rata; flowers and pollination; fruits and seeds; related plants in South America; plants of our southern islands; naturalised plants; and, Maori words in plant names. Each easily-digested article will give the reader a fresh insight into the botanical world that surrounds us all. Eric Godley has wide research interests. In particular, he has published extensively on the reproductive biology of the native flora, the biogeography of southern temperate floras, and botanical history. He has also used his broad knowledge of botany to encourage public interest in plants by contributing regularly to magazines such as The New Zealand Gardener from which most of this book's essays are sourced.
Table of Contents:
Introduction; Banks and Cook: When Joseph Banks was learning his craft, Landfall to order, Captaincookia; The Seasons and Winter: The seasons, Native flowers in winter, Flower buds in winter, Growing points and winter, The five-finger flowers, Ivy-watching from my window, Flowers after snow; Mount Haast: Alpine flowers on Mount Haast, Flowers of the beech forest, Mistletoes at Christmas, An unusual December; Flowers and Pollination: Flower signals, Our most primitive flowering plants, A native convolvulus, Native orchids, Birds and the kaka-beak, Kowhai, Colenso and parrots, Flower birds, Native bees; Fruits and Seeds: A glance at capsules, Birds, seeds and fruits, Legume and follicle, The kowhai and its pod, Puriri seeds; Seedlings: T?toki seedlings, Our largest cotyledons, Juvenile seven-finger could come inside: Kowhai: The prostrate kowhai, Cantankerous kowhai, Galls on kowhai, What is 'Gnome'?, The supposed Easter Island Sophora in Christchurch New Zealand; Pohutukawa and Rata: The Christmas tree, Flowering in pohutukawa, Parkinson's rata; Fuchsia: Canninama and the to-te-ra, Our tree-fuchsia, The Tahitian fuchsia; Tropical Outliers: A rare plant in Akaroa, Fruiting in Tecomanthe, The mangrove, Puka-male or female?, The kohekohe-a tropical outlier; South America: Some impressions of a botanist in Southern Chile, New Zealand and its South American relations Kamahi, towai and tineo, A Chilean nut tree, Chile's honey-palm; Far South: Adams Island, A New Zealander on the Falkland Islands, Antarctic flowering plants; Botany Division and Floras: Fifty years of botany, A national identification service, A new Flora, Another new Flora; New Chums: Gorse - our friend and enemy, Troublesome vines, Roadside flowers, New chums from Australia, Horses and cabbage trees, Does planting achieve its purpose?; Reviewing the Regions: The botany of Auckland, Plants of the Manawatu, Mount Aspiring National Park; Plant Names and Families: Why change plant names?, What's in a name?, Family names, Small families - northern and southern, Maori words in the scientific names of plants; Postscript; Index
About the Author :
Dr Eric J. Godley OBE, Hon. DSc (Cantuar), FRSNZ, AHRNZIH has made a sustained and distinguished contribution to New Zealand botany. After completing degrees at Auckland and Cambridge he spent most of his career as the Director of the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Under his leadership, the Division greatly expanded its research and extension programmes, established a network of regional stations, and became New Zealand's principal centre for research on native and naturalised plants.
