Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand, and is also used in New Zealand English. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole country before the arrival of Europeans, with Aotearoa originally referring to just the North Island. Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, supposing it was connected to a landmass of the same name at the southern tip of South America.
In 1645 Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand. Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Wai Pounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South. In 1830 maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907 this was the accepted norm.
The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised, but there are now plans to do so. The board is also considering suitable Māori names, with Te Ika-a-Māui and Te Wai Pounamu the most likely choices according to the chairman of the Māori Language Commission.
Monday, 4 June 2012
Zygopetalum (Hook. 1833), is a genus of the orchid family (Orchidaceae) (subfamily Epidendroideae, tribe Maxillarieae, subtribe Zygopetalinae), consisting of fourteen species.
This orchid's generic name, derived from the Greek word "zygon", means "yoked petal." It refers to the yoke-like growth at the base of the lip caused by the fusion of petals and the sepals.
They occur in humid forests at low- to mid-elevation regions of South America, with most species in Brazil.
Most are epiphytes, but some are terrestrials with glossy, strap-like, plicate leaves, which are apical, oblong or elliptic-lanceolate, acute or acuminate. These orchids have a robust growth form. Their ovoid-conical pseudobulbs are deciduous.
They produce an erect, 60 centimeter-long, few-flowered to several-flowered, racemose inflorescence that grows laterally and is longer than the leaves. Their prominent bracts equal the length of the ovary. They are known for their fragrant, waxy, and long-lived flowers with multiple blooms in shades of green, purple, burgundy, and raspberry with several patterns.
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Today's threat to our pocket books is presented in an article in the Dominion Post entitled "Exhaust fumes kill as many as road crashes" - a claim made by someone in the bureaucracy in order to justify testing all vehicles for emissions in order to reduce the horrible air pollution that is
choking us continually here in New Zealand. Of course this statement has no basis in fact, but anything that can expand the scope of government here is enthusiastically embraced, especially since the New Zealand government is the largest employer in the southern hemisphere.. What they should be testing for is working mufflers since hearing loss is the third largest killer in New Zealand, just behind being trampled by sheep. Now if the government offered to replace the polluting vehicles with fuel efficient hybrids, which it could easily do since more taxes are collected
in New Zealand than gross national product of Australia, then this proposal makes sense. There are even some idiots who think this proposal doesn't go far enough - because it still leaves some vehicles on the road. New Zealand has some of the cleanest air in the world - that vehicle testing is a hot priority is a tribute to cancerous bureaucracy the NZ government has become.