Pink muhly grass Muhlenbergia capillaris (Lamark) Trinius is a perennial, tussock-forming that native to North and Central America. The reddish-purple coloration of the spikes this species has resulted in becoming popular as an ornamental plant around world. Interestingly, very few insects have been reported be associated with grass. I therefore examined arthropod assemblages on M. two urban pa...

The Coppermine River in western Nunavut is one of Canada's great Arctic rivers, yet its vascular plant flora is poorly known. Here, we report the results of a floristic inventory of the lower Coppermine River valley and vicinity, including Kugluk (Bloody Falls) Territorial Park and the hamlet of Kugluktuk. The study area is approximately 1,200 km2, extending from the forest-tundra south of the ...

The role of backcountry huts as focal points for weed establishment and spread into New Zealand’s national parks has received little attention. In this study we describe the pattern of weed spread around Takahe Valley Hut, Murchison Mountains, Fiordland National Park. Established in 1948, the hut is located at 900 m a.s.l. at the ecotone between Nothofagus forest and valley floor shrubland/gras...

The effect of the addition of synthetic sheep urine (SSU) and plant species on the bacterial community composition of upland acidic grasslands was studied using a microcosm approach. Low, medium, and high concentrations of SSU were applied to pots containing plant species typical of both unimproved (Agrostis capillaris) and agriculturally improved (Lolium perenne) grasslands, and harvests were ...

Changes in Hieracium abundance in Eastern Otago tussock grassland were examined by sampling 163 sites in 1982 and again in 1992. For Hieracium pilosella, H. praealtum and H. lepidulum, as well as Agrostis capillaris for comparison, colonisation of new sites was recorded, as well as extinction of species from sites over the 10 years, and changes in cover. H. pilosella colonised the majority of s...

Climate change is stronger at high than at temperate and tropical latitudes. The natural geothermal conditions in southern Iceland provide an opportunity to study the impact of warming on plants, because of the geothermal bedrock channels that induce stable gradients of soil temperature. We studied two valleys, one where such gradients have been present for centuries (long-term treatment), and ...

In this study, ethanolic extracts from Hericium erinaceum cultivated with Artemisia capillaris (HEAC) were assessed for their ability to lower the cholesterol levels of male Sprague-Dawley rats fed a high-fat diet. Rats were randomly subdivided into seven test groups. Each group contained eight rats fed a high-fat diet during a growth period lasting 4 wk. Supplementation with the extracts was p...

An experiment was performed to study the effect of feeding by the larvae of Tipula paludosa (Meig.) on the plant biomass of two contrasting plant species and on the soil microbial community, under controlled conditions. Agrostis capillaris (L.) (bentgrass) and Trifolium repens (L.) (white clover), were grown in pots, in monoculture and as mixtures, containing soil from an upland grassland site ...

Earlier, we described the isolation of a Crepis palaestina cDNA (Cpal2) which encoded a Delta12-epoxygenase that could catalyse the synthesis of 12,13-epoxy-cis-9-octadecenoic acid (18:1E) from linoleic acid (18:2). When the Cpal2 gene was expressed under the control of a seed-specific promoter in Arabidopsis, plants were able to accumulate small amounts 18:1E and 12,13-epoxy-cis-9,15-octadec-2...

Ring chromosomes, long of interest in cytogenetics, have been intensively studied in corn and Drosophila (McClintock, 1932, 1938; Morgan, 1933; Battacharya, 1950) and also described in Crepis, Tulipa, Tradescantia, and other species. In the past few years, a number of reports of ring chromosomes in man have appeared (Table I). We recently encountered a mentally retarded patient with multiple co...