Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area in southeastern Nevada and northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Grand Canyon National Park to just north of the cities of Laughlin, Nevada and Bullhead City, Arizona. It includes all of the eponymous Lake Mead as well as the smaller Lake Mohave – reservoirs on the river created by Hoover Dam and Davis Dam, respectively – and the surrounding desert terrain and wilderness.
Formation of Lake Mead began in 1935, less than a year before Hoover Dam was completed. The area surrounding Lake Mead was protected a bird refuge in 1933, later established as the Boulder Dam Recreation Area in 1936 and the name was changed to Lake Mead National Recreation Area in 1947. In 1964, the area was expanded to include Lake Mohave and its surrounding area and became the first National Recreation Area to be designated as such by the U.S. Congress.
Amenities.
Lake Mead NRA features water recreation, including boating, swimming, and fishing, on both lakes as well as the stretches of river between the lakes. It also features hiking trails and views of the surrounding desert landscape. Three of the four desert ecosystems found in the United States — the Mojave Desert, the Great Basin Desert, and the Sonoran Desert — meet in Lake Mead NRA. Tours of Hoover Dam – administered by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – are also a major attraction within the recreation area.
About of the recreation area are managed separately under the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, established in 2000. Water covers about of the recreation area.
The ghost town of St. Thomas, Nevada is contained entirely within Lake Mead NRA. The town, once entirely submerged beneath Lake Mead, features a two-mile-long loop trail with interpretative signage. It is accessed near the Northshore Entrance Station, just south of Overton.
Wilderness areas.
There are currently nine officially designated wilderness areas under the National Wilderness Preservation System lying within Lake Mead National Recreation Area. All are in the Nevada portion. Parts of some of these wildernesses (as indicated) lie outside Lake Mead NRA and are managed by the Bureau of Land Management:
Park resources.
Fish species.
Lakes Mead and Mohave offer some of the country’s best sport fishing. The following species are found in both lakes:
Visitation.
For 2012, with 6.3 million recreational visits, Lake Mead National Recreation Area was the 5th most visited national park.


Brickellia simplex

Brickellia simplex (Sonoran brickellbush) is a North American species of flowering plants in the daisy family. It is native to northern Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila) and the southwestern United States (New Mexico, Arizona).
"Brickellia simplex" is a branching shrub up to 60 cm (24 inches) tall, growing from a woody caudex. It produces many small flower heads with yellow disc florets but no ray florets.


Microcosmus sabatieri

Microcosmus sabatieri, commonly called the grooved sea squirt, sea fig, or violet, is a species of tunicates (sea squirts). The species has a rocky-shape appearance. It is mainly found in the Mediterranean Sea. It is used as food in parts of Europe.
Uses.
Three species of Microcosmus are edible presently, M. sabatieri, M. vulgaris, and M. polymorphus (Vafidis 2008). In the Mediterranean Basin, it is eaten raw, often with an acidic condiment such as lemon juice or vinegar with shallots. It has a strong iodine taste which not all appreciate.
Names.
The specific epithet "sabatieri" is in honor of zoologist Armand Sabatier. The name 'violet' is from the distinguishing violet stripes on the siphon.
The species has many common names. In Dutch it is ' (lit. "violet pocket-pipe") or ' ("overgrown pocket-pipe"). In French it's ', ' (lit. "sea fig"), and in Marseille, ' (lit. "sea potato"), or '. In the Catalan language it's called ' or ' ("jewel"). In German they use ' (lit. "sea fig") or ' ("edible sea sheath"). It is ' (', lit. "bubble" or "puff") in Greek. In Italian, ' ("sea lemon") or ' ("sea egg") are used. Names in Spanish include ' ("profit"), ' ("sea potatoes"), and ' ("sea fritter"). In Ligurian it can be called "' ("sea turds"). In Morocco, in both Moroccan Darija and Berber, it's called fezḍaḍ (فزضاض) or afezḍaḍ (ⴰⴼⴻⵣⴹⴰⴹ, أفزضاض).
Other names it is sold under include:
Note that plants of the genus "Carpobrotus" are also known as 'sea figs'.


Copper Falls State Park

Copper Falls State Park is a state park in Wisconsin. The park contains a section of the Bad River and its tributary the Tylers Forks, which flow through a gorge and drop over several waterfalls. Old Copper Culture Indians and later European settlers mined copper in the area. The state park was created in 1929 and amenities were developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. In 2005 the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a site with 10 contributing properties.
History.
Copper Falls Park lies near the west end of the Penokee-Gogebic Mineral Range, a ridge of rock formations that stretches from Ashland County 80 miles to Lake Gogebic in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Copper was mined in the area during the Civil War, and in the 1880s there were two copper mines near where the log footbridge now is. Around 1900 Wells M. Ruggles had a crew digging for copper at what is now the southeast corner of the picnic grounds. The Bad River repeatedly filled his shaft with water, so he dynamited rock to divert the river.
Ashland County was heavily logged from 1886 to 1920, stripping both pine and hardwood and leaving a wasteland of stumps and brush. Some of this cutover land was sold to immigrants to farm, but the acidic soil left by pine forests and the short summers of northern Wisconsin made it difficult to grow many crops, and many farms were abandoned by the 1920s and 30s, leaving the area vulnerable to fire and erosion.
In 1907 Ruggles and his Ashland County Land Company sold 130 acres around the falls to investors from St. Louis. In the following years, local efforts were made to improve the site for visitors. The county improved the road to the park, and in 1922 WWI vets Nick Stilin and Henry Kritz built three swinging footbridges for viewing the falls. During summers, Mr. and Mrs. August Froming sold food and drink at the falls.
The state of Wisconsin bought 520 acres at the falls in 1929 and additional land in 1935. Starting in 1933, Mayor Maxeiner of Mellen and Congressman B.J. Gehrmann pushed the Conservation Commission in Madison to assign a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp to develop a park at Copper Falls. In 1935, a master plan for a park was completed by a team of surveyors, landscape architects, architects and engineers from various government agencies. The park was a challenge to design, since the roads and trails had to work around the river gorges and ravines.
CCC Company D-692 moved into Camp Copper Falls in November 1935. They were 164 men - mostly young men from Illinois - including masons, carpenters, furniture makers, and blacksmiths. Before Copper Falls, they had worked on Giant City State Park in southern Illinois. In the following 23 months they built Copper Falls' recreational lodge, its granite fireplaces, its benches and tables. They started building the contact station, built a pump house, built water reservoirs, built the observation tower, laid water lines, and ran telephone and electric lines. They cleared areas for parking, camping and picnicking. They cleared park trails and roads (removing many stumps in the process), built log footbridges, and lots of guardrail. In the summer of 1936 northern Wisconsin saw a bad drought, and the CCCs focused on fire suppression in the surrounding area. The camp closed in September 1937.
After the CCC left, work continued under the WPA - another New Deal program which employed unemployed local men on public projects. (An unskilled worker made about 50¢ a day.) One CCC foreman remained to supervise the WPA men as they continued the CCC's projects. WPA reports show that they worked on improving the trails, a bathing pond, the custodian's house, a playground, park lights, and tree thinning, and completed the contact station, among other things. The WPA work continued until August 1941, when funds ran out.
A flood of the Bad River on August 30, 1941 damaged the bathing pond, bath house, dressing cabin, and two bridges over the Bad River. Another flood June 24, 1946 destroyed the swimming pond and bathhouse, and wrecked the flight of wooden steps across from the combination building.


Chromolaena oteroi

Chromolaena oteroi (Mona Island thoroughwort) is a species of flowering shrub in the sunflower family. It has been found only on Mona Island, a small island between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola in the West Indies and politically a part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
The shrub, with its pale purple flowers, was named after botanist José I. Otero.


Teucrium socotranum

Teucrium socotranum is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae. It is found only in the Socotra Islands, part of the nation of Yemen. Its natural habitat is rocky areas.


Justicia californica

Justicia californica is a species of flowering shrub native to the deserts of southern California, Arizona, and northern Mexico. Its common names include chuparosa (or chiparosa, both colloquial Spanish terms for "hummingbird"), hummingbird bush, and beloperone.
It is one of the northernmost distributed species of the mostly tropical genus "Justicia". This is a low bush which grows in dry, hot regions in the sand or rocky terrain of the desert floor. For a short time it bears succulent leaves. It loses its leaves and then produces plentiful tubular flowers, usually in shades of bright to deep red, or sometimes yellow. Each long flower has a wide lower lip that falls open to reveal the inside of the blossom. Hummingbirds visit the bush to feed on the nectar. Other birds eat the sugar-rich flower centers. This plant is sometimes cultivated as a landscape ornamental in desert regions for its bright flowers and to attract birds.


Bonamia media

Bonamia media is a herb in the family Convolvulaceae.
The perennial herb has a prostrate habit. It produces white-blue flowers.
It is found throughout northern Australia in a wide variety of land types. In Western Australia it is much more restricted being found on floodplains and basalt hillslopes in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions where it grows in sandy rocky alluvium.


Argyrochosma jonesii

Argyrochosma jonesii, known as Jones' false cloak fern, is a species of fern native to the southwestern United States and Sonora, Mexico. It grows on calcareous rocks, and has small, finely-divided leaves with a leathery texture and dark axes connecting the leaf segments. Unlike many members of "Argyrochosma", it does not secrete white powder on the underside of its leaves. First described as a species in 1917, it was transferred to the new genus "Argyrochosma" (the "false cloak ferns") in 1987, recognizing their distinctness from the "cloak ferns" ("Notholaena" "sensu stricto").
Description.
The rhizome is short and horizontal, with leaves closely spaced. It bears linear or linear-subulate, uniformly colored, brown or reddish-brown scales, sometimes nearly black in color, with entire (toothless) margins and a thin texture. They are long and wide.
The leaves range from long, and arise in clumps. The stipe (the stalk of the leaf, below the blade) is chestnut brown or reddish-brown to dark brown, rounded and hairless, and in diameter. It is typically long, making up about one-half to two-thirds of the total length of the leaf. The leaf blade is ovate to lanceolate, and ranges from bipinnate (cut into pinnae and pinnules) to tripinnate (with pinnules cut into pinnulets) at the base, where it is most divided. It is not reduced in width at the base. The blade measures from long and wide. The base is obtuse (blunt), while the tip is acute (pointed). The rachis (leaf axis) is rounded or slightly flattened on the upper side, sometimes even shallowly grooved, and dark in color, as are the axes of the leaf segments. The color continues into the base of the leaf segments, without a distinct joint. The axes are straight, rather than zig-zagging. Each blade has 4 to 6 pairs of pinnae, ovate or deltoid-ovate in shape. These are in turn divided into 2 to 3 pairs of orbicular (circular) or deltoid to ovate pinnules, obtuse at the tip and cordate (heart-shaped) or truncate (abruptly terminating) at the base and borne on a short stalk. The ones closest to the blade base may be subdivided into another set of segments, while the pinnules closer to the blade tip are lobed or entire. The leaf tissue is dark blue-green and of a leathery to fleshy texture, obscuring the veins from the upper surface, and does not bear hairs or scales on either surface. Unlike many species in the genus, farina (powder) is not present on either surface of the leaf. The leaves do not curl when dry.
In fertile leaf segments, the sporangia are close to the margin, borne along the further half of the secondary veins branching from the midrib of the segment. Each sporangium contains 64 spores. The leaf segments, at most, are slightly curled under, not concealing the sporangia, and their tissue is not modified into a false indusium.
"A. jonesii" is a sexual diploid, with a chromosome count of 2"n" = 54. A tetraploid cytotype was thought to exist, but this is believed to be the result of plants occasionally producing 32 diploid (rather than 64 haploid) spores and giving rise to diploid gametophytes.
It is most similar in appearance to the closely-related "A. lumholtzii", and both are present in Sonora, but the latter has a darker leaf stalk and axes and the leaf is less highly divided.
Taxonomy.
The species was first described in 1917 as "Notholaena jonesii" by William Ralph Maxon. It was named for Marcus E. Jones, who collected the material on which the description was based.
Both Edwin Copeland and Charles Alfred Weatherby suggested in the 1940s that a group of ferns related to "Notholaena nivea" might represent a distinct genus of its own. Weatherby thought that, until that genus was described, the group might better be placed in "Pellaea", rather than in "Notholaena", but died in 1949 before he could circumscribe and publish it. Accordingly, in 1950, Conrad Vernon Morton transferred the species to "Pellaea" as "P. jonesii", to provide a name for it in Thomas Henry Kearney's "Flowering Plants and ferns of Arizona." In 1958, Philip A. Munz, preparing a flora of California and following Copeland's opinion that "Notholaena" was best lumped into a broadly defined "Cheilanthes", transferred it to that genus as "C. jonesii". John T. Mickel, carrying out a similar program of lumping in 1979, accidentally duplicated Munz's combination.
The recognition of the "N. nivea" group as a genus was finally addressed in 1987 by Michael D. Windham, who was carrying out phylogenetic studies of the cheilanthoids. He elevated "Notholaena" sect. "Argyrochosma" to become the genus "Argyrochosma", and transferred this species to that genus as "A. jonesii". In 2018, Maarten J. M. Christenhusz transferred the species to "Hemionitis" as "H. jonesii", as part of a program to consolidate the cheilanthoid ferns into that genus.
Phylogenetic studies have shown that "A. jonesii" is a sister species to "A. lumholtzii", a rare Sonoran species; these two species form a clade sister to another clade containing "A. formosa" and "A. microphylla". All four species lack farina, and their common ancestor is hypothesized to have diverged from the ancestor of the rest of the genus before farina production developed in the latter.
Distribution and habitat.
"Argyrochosma jonesii" is known in the United States from California, Arizona, Nevada, and southern Utah and in Mexico from Sonora, particularly within the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. It grows on calcareous cliffs and ledges, at an altitude from .
Conservation.
Under the NatureServe conservation status system, "A. jonesii" is ranked as apparently secure (G4), but it is considered critically imperiled in Utah.
Cultivation.
It prefers high light, and moist-dry to dry, well-drained soil, perhaps of high pH.


Rice Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area

Rice Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area is an Illinois state park on in Fulton County, Illinois, United States.


Kunzea parvifolia

Kunzea parvifolia, commonly known as the violet kunzea, is a flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a wiry shrub with small, narrow leaves and clusters of pink to purple flowers in spring.
Description.
"Kunzea parvifolia" is a wiry shrub which usually grows to a height of with its young branches covered with soft hairs. The leaves are linear to narrow lance-shaped and more or less pressed against the stem. They are long, about wide with a petiole less than long and are covered with soft hairs when young. The flowers are arranged in clusters of mostly three to eight on the ends of the branches. The floral cup is long and more or less glabrous. There are egg-shaped bracts long, about wide and paired bracteoles at the base of the flowers. The sepal lobes are triangular to egg-shaped, about long and pointed. The petals are pink to mauve, rarely white, egg-shaped to almost round, about long and there 30 to 40 stamens which are long. The style is long. Flowering mostly occurs in October and November and the fruit are urn-shaped capsules which are about long and wide.
Taxonomy and naming.
"Kunzea parvifolia" was first formally described in 1844 by Johannes Conrad Schauer and the description was published in Johann Lehmann's "Plantae Preissianae". The specific epithet ("parvifolia") is derived from the Latin words "parvus" meaning "small" and "folium" meaning "leaf".
Distribution and habitat.
This kunzea grows in forest in heath and forest in eastern New South Wales south from Torrington and in Victoria, mainly in the north-east but with isolated locations further west.


Tripneustes depressus

Tripneustes depressus, the white sea urchin or sea egg, is a species of sea urchin in the family Toxopneustidae. It is found on the seabed in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean including Mexico, Panama, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands.
Description.
"Tripneustes depressus" is the largest sea urchin species in the Galápagos Islands with a mean diameter of . The growth rate averages per month. There is very little difference in morphology between "T. depressus", "Tripneustes gratilla" and "Tripneustes ventricosus"; they are suspected of being the same species and genetic analysis strengthens this argument. "T. ventricosus" is found in the Caribbean and may have been separated from "T. depressus" by the closing of the land bridge between North and South America. "T. gratilla" has a wide range in the tropical Indo-Pacific, from East Africa to Hawaii.
Distribution.
"Tripneustes depressus" is found in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, occurring in Mexico, on the western coast of Central America, in Panama, in Ecuador and around the Galápagos Islands. It is found intertidally and subtidally. There is a great variation in its abundance around the Galápagos, and overall it seems to be ten times as common in 2012 as it was four decades earlier.
Ecology.
The diet of "T. depressus" consists largely of algae and possibly also fragments of seagrass. Red filamentous algae is the main dietary constituent but pieces of sponge and other invertebrates have been found among its stomach contents. It may in fact be a generalist feeder rather than a herbivore, as in time of food scarcity, it sometimes turns cannibalistic.
Research.
It has been shown that the coelomic fluid in the body cavity of "T. depressus" contains peptides that act as antivirals against the pseudorabies virus (SuHV1) and the rabies virus (RV), despite the fact that neither of these viruses affect sea urchins; molecules from this species may be the basis for new drugs in the future.


Fairy Stone State Park

Fairy Stone State Park, located in Patrick County, Virginia, is the largest of the original six state parks that opened on June 15, 1936, and is home to the mysterious "fairy stones", or staurolite. The stone, prevalent in the region, may have the St. Andrew's or Roman shape.
The park's land was donated in 1933 by Junius B. Fishburn, former president of the Southwest Virginia Trust Co. and former owner of the "Roanoke Times". The park is , making it the largest of the six original parks and one of the largest to this day. Some of the park's features, including its lake and many structures still in use, were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.


Manilkara excisa

Manilkara excisa (known locally as either sapodilla bullet, sapodilla or simply sappa) is an endangered species of tall tree in the sapodilla family. It is endemic to the extremely steep, forested limestone hills of Trelawny, Cockpit Country and St. James parishes in Jamaica, where, although it is highly prized for its wood, it is threatened by habitat loss.


Angeles National Forest

The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the U.S. Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
The national forest was established in 1908, incorporating the first San Bernardino National Forest and parts of the former Santa Barbara and San Gabriel National Forests. Angeles National Forest headquarters are located in Arcadia, California.
Geography.
The Angeles National Forest covers a total of , protecting large areas of the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains. It is located just north of the densely inhabited metropolitan area of Greater Los Angeles.
While primarily within Los Angeles County, a small part extends eastward into southwestern San Bernardino County, in the Mount San Antonio ("Mount Baldy") area, and a tiny section also extends westward into northeastern Ventura County, in the Lake Piru area.
The San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, established in 2014 and managed by the U.S. Forest Service, is largely within the Angeles National Forest.
The John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act of 2019 established the Saint Francis Dam Disaster National Memorial and Saint Francis Dam Disaster National Monument at and around the ruins of the St. Francis Dam in the Forest's San Francisquito Canyon.
Wilderness areas.
The Angeles National Forest contains five nationally designated wilderness areas. Two of these also extend into neighboring San Bernardino National Forest:
History.
The San Gabriel Forest Reserve was established on December 20, 1892, the San Bernardino Forest Reserve was established on February 25, 1893, and the Santa Barbara Forest Reserve was established on December 22, 1903. Together, they became National Forests on March 4, 1907, and they were combined on July 1, 1908, with all of the San Bernardino forest and portions of San Gabriel forest and Santa Barbara forest composing the new Angeles National Forest. On September 30, 1925, portions of the Angeles National Forest and the Cleveland National Forest were detached to re-establish the San Bernardino National Forest.
Angeles National Forest is registered as California Historical Landmark #717, for being the first National Forest in the state.
The campgrounds at Broken Blade, Twisted Arrow and Pima Loops were closed on July 26, 2013 after squirrel infected with bubonic plague was discovered.
Wildfires.
Loop Fire.
On 1 November 1966, a fire started at 5:19a.m. on the Los Pinetos Nike Site (LA-94). The fire spread, threatening medical facilities and residential areas south edge of the national forest. 12 firefighters with United States Forest Service's El Cariso "Hot Shot" crew were killed they were caught in a flare up in a canyon. 11 more firefighters were seriously burned in the incident. The fire was brought under control on at 1:00p.m. on 2 November, having burned .
Station Fire.
In the Station Fire, more than of the forest were burned by an arson fire that began on August 26, 2009, near Angeles Crest Highway in La Cañada and quickly spread, fueled by dry brush that had not burned for over 150 years. The fire burned for more than a month and was the worst in Los Angeles County history, charring , approximately one-fourth of the forest; displacing wildlife, and destroying 91 homes, cabins and outbuildings and the family-owned Hidden Springs Cafe.
During the fire, two firefighters died after driving off the Mt. Gleason County Road looking for an alternate route to get the inmates out at Camp 16. The Station Fire threatened the Mount Wilson Observatory atop Mt. Wilson . The site includes two telescopes, two solar towers, and transmitters for 22 television stations, several FM radio stations, and police and fire department emergency channels. Although the fire scorched one side of the outhouse at amateur-owned Stony Ridge Observatory, six miles northeast of Mt. Wilson, aside from minor damage from smoke and ash infiltration, the remainder of the observatory and its historic 30-inch Carroll telescope survived.
2012 fires.
Several 2012 wildfires occurred, burning hundreds of acres across the forest-covered mountain range.
Bobcat Fire (2020).
In September and October 2020, the Bobcat Fire burned (468 km2) in the central San Gabriel Mountains of the Angeles National Forest. It was one of the largest wildfires in Los Angeles County history.
Natural history.
The Angeles National Forest manages the habitats, flora and fauna ecosystems, and watersheds. Some of the rivers with watersheds within its boundaries provide valuable non-groundwater recharge water for Southern California. The existing protected and restored native vegetation absorb and slow surface runoff of rainwater to minimize severe floods and landslides in adjacent communities. The land within the forest is diverse, both in appearance and terrain. Elevations range from . The Pacific Crest Trail crosses the forest.
Flora.
Much of this National Forest is covered with dense chaparral shrub forests with oak woodlands, which changes to pine and fir-covered slopes in the higher elevations. Subsequent to the fire there was a heavy growth of poodle-dog bush, apparently triggered by the fire's effect on dormant seeds, that lasted for several years. The plant produces prolific lavender flowers. Unfortunately, as visitors to the Forest discovered, contact with it may cause a poison-oak-like rash.
Tree species for which the forest is important include bigcone Douglas-fir ("Pseudotsuga macrocarpa"), Coulter pine ("Pinus coulteri"), and California walnut ("Juglans californica"). The National Forest also contains some of old growth, with: Jeffrey pine ("Pinus jeffreyi") forests and mixed conifer forests (Coast Douglas-fir ("Pseudotsuga menziesii" var. "menziesii"), ponderosa pine ("Pinus ponderosa"), and white fir ("Abies concolor")), and lodgepole pine ("Pinus contorta") the most abundant types.
Fauna.
This forest is home to black bears, gray foxes, bobcats, cougars, mule deer, bighorn sheep, rattlesnakes and coyotes.
Access.
A National Forest Adventure Pass is required for parking at many locations in the Angeles National Forest and other National Forests in Southern California, and this can be obtained online or from visitor centers and local merchants. Los Angeles County has declared that passes are not required on county-maintained roads. There are also many other areas that do not require the pass.
General information.
Mountain peaks.
Mountains within the Angeles National Forest include:
All the above mountains are part of the San Gabriel Mountains, except for Burnt Peak, which is in the Sierra Pelona Mountains.
California Historical Landmark.
The California Historical Landmark Marker NO. 717 at San Gabriel Mountain, Clear Creek vista point, State Hwy 2, 8.3 mi N of I-210, La Canada reads:


Antennaria neglecta

Antennaria neglecta is a North American species of flowering plants in the daisy family known by the common name field pussytoes. It is widespread across much of Canada (including Northwest Territories plus all provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador) as well as the northeastern and north-central United States.
"Antennaria neglecta " is an herb up to 25 cm (10 inches) tall with as many as 8 flowering heads per plant. Male and female flowers are borne on separate plants, some populations being composed entirely of female plants.


Hoslundia opposita


Araeosoma leptaleum

Araeosoma leptaleum is a species of sea urchin of the family Echinothuriidae. Their armour is covered with spines. It is placed in the genus Araeosoma and lives in the sea. Araeosoma leptaleum was first scientifically described in 1909 by Alexander Emanuel Agassiz & Hubert Lyman Clark.


Brachyscome ascendens

Brachyscome ascendens, the border ranges daisy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic to Australia. It has mostly mauve daisy-like flowers and a yellow centre.
Description.
"Brachyscome ascendens" is a herbaceous perennial with slender stems rising from the base of the plant or upper leaves. The branches are trailing and slightly ascending about long with glandular hairs. The leaves grow from the base and along the stems, usually lance-shaped, broader at the apex, long, wide and leaf edges usually lobed or toothed. The leaves decrease in size toward the end of the branch, usually with fewer lobes. The uppermost leaves often with smooth margins, lance or narrow shaped. The flower petals are long, mauve or lilac and the centre yellow. The 12-18 overlapping flower bracts are in diameter, elliptic or egg-shaped, rounded at the tip, long, wide with prominent dry and thin edges. The thin, brown dry fruit are long, flat, egg-shaped with prominent small warty protuberances on the surface. Flowering occurs April, October and December.
Taxonomy and naming.
" Brachyscome ascendens" was first formally described in 1948 by Gwenda Davis and the description was published in "Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales". The specific epithet "ascendens" is derived from the Latin word "ascendo" meaning "mount", "climb", "rise" or "grow".
Distribution and habitat.
Border ranges daisy grows in forests or woodland on rocky basalt slopes from the McPherson Range area and to the east near the New South Wales and Queensland border.
Conservation status.
"Brachyscome ascendens" is classified as endangered in New South Wales.


Ponerorchis compacta

Ponerorchis compacta is a species of flowering plant in the family Orchidaceae, native to south-central China (west Sichuan).
Taxonomy.
The species was first described in 1924 by Rudolf Schlechter, as "Neottianthe compacta". A molecular phylogenetic study in 2014 found that species of "Neottianthe", "Amitostigma" and "Ponerorchis" were mixed together in a single clade, making none of the three genera monophyletic as then circumscribed. "Neottianthe" and "Amitostigma" were subsumed into "Ponerorchis", with this species becoming "Ponerorchis compacta".


Barkeria skinneri

Barkeria skinneri is a species of orchid native to Guatemala and Chiapas.


Mont Alto State Park

Mont Alto State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on in Quincy Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The park is on Pennsylvania Route 233 one mile from Mont Alto.
History.
Mont Alto Iron Company.
Mont Alto State Park is the oldest state park in Pennsylvania. Its history began with the former Mont Alto Iron Furnace, a blast furnace built in 1807. It was high and wide at the boshes. The furnace produced between of iron a day. The area was a center of iron production for many years. The Mont Alto Railroad was built by the Mont Alto Iron Company to connect the furnaces of the area to the Cumberland Valley Railroad near Chambersburg. This railroad served a dual purpose, carrying iron shipments from the furnace and bringing visitors to Mont Alto Park. The park was opened by the Mont Alto Iron Company. Ownership of Mont Alto Park was transferred to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on May 1, 1902.
The First State Park.
Mont Alto Park became the first "state forest park" in Pennsylvania. The park had a swimming pool, refreshment stand, hiking trails and a carousel. It was also the site of South Mountain Camp Sanitorium. This sanitorium was founded by Dr. Joseph Rothrock, a medical doctor and forester who opened several sanitoriums in the forests of Pennsylvania and became known as the father of forestry in Pennsylvania. The sanitorium treated those afflicted with tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses. Over the years the park has gradually become less and less of a destination for visitors. It is now a quiet park with minimal facilities. The building that housed the carousel, which now serves as a picnic pavilion, is a reminder of the past.
Recreation.
The West Branch Antietam Creek flows through Mont Alto State Park and provides visitors to the park to fish for trout. Logging and forest management roads provide access to hiking opportunities in the nearby Michaux State Forest. There are two picnic areas with approximately 50 tables and two pavilions, one being the former carousel house. The park also provides parking and restroom facilities for hunters and other outdoorsman that venture into Michaux State Forest.
Nearby state parks.
The following state parks are within of Mont Alto State Park:


Nemacladus glanduliferus

Nemacladus glanduliferus is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family known by the common name glandular threadplant. It is native to the southwestern United States and Baja California, where it grows in desert and plateau habitat. It is an annual herb producing a purplish or brownish green, branching stem up to about 25 centimeters tall. Small oval leaves occur at the base of the plant. The inflorescence is a series of zigzagging branches bearing occasional flowers on thin, erect pedicels. There is a single small bract at the base of each pedicel. The flower at the curved tip of the pedicel is just a few millimeters wide. There are five pointed sepals and five white corolla lobes, generally three in the upper lip and two in the lower.


Wutach Gorge

The Wutach Gorge () is a narrow, steep-sided valley in southern Germany through in the upper reaches of the River Wutach with three gorge-like sections, the lowest of which is also called the "Wutachflühen". The gorge cuts through the southern part of the Baar region from the eastern side of the High Black Forest heading eastwards to the "Trauf" the steep, northwestern flank of the Swabian Jura, which transitions to the Randen mountains here.
The 60- to 170-metre-deep gorges stretch for over 33 river kilometres (excluding side gorges) and are notable for many reasons. Their geologically young, prototypical and actively continuing development results in a great variety of geotopes and biotopes that support a correspondingly rich range of flora and fauna. The gorges are very popular with tourists and played an important role in the establishment of conservation consciousness in southwestern Germany. The Wutach Gorge is part of the Southern Black Forest Nature Park.
Course and character.
The ravines start in the valley of the "Gutach" (the upper reaches of the Wutach) below Neustadt and in the valley of the "Haslach" below Lenzkirch. After they merge to form the "Wutach" they run, with small changes of direction, initially generally eastward and end at the village of Grimmelshofen in the municipality of Stühlingen after the Wutach turns sharply southwards in the area of the former mining town of Blumberg on meeting the steep slopes of the "Baaralb". Initially, the gorge is bordered by the wooded plateaus of the eastern slopes of the Black Forest. Later, its northern border is formed by the historical "Bertholdsbaar" with the population centre of Löffingen and the village of Rötenbach. To the south is a similar muschelkalk plateau with the settlements of Bonndorf and Wutach.
Over a straight-line distance of barely 20 kilometres, the Wutach and several of its tributaries have cut a natural profile section through almost all of the strata of South German Scarplands, which fan out a further 200 kilometres to the north, but surface here in close succession. The Mesozoic rock layers were clearly inclined more steeply than usual here (on average 7%) by the uplifting of the southern Black Forest and have been cut through here in succession by the Wutach. Because the Wutach "only" descends through a gradient of around 1% as it flows eastward, increasingly younger rocks are encountered, each overlaid over its predecessor, as one progresses down the gorge. This has created a continuous sequence of rock outcrops from the basement (here mostly granite) through the Triassic to the Jurassic. As these rocks each produce their own peculiar and very different landforms when they are cut by vertical erosion, one of the most diversified and most interesting gorge landscapes in Central Europe has resulted. The gorges often transition seamlessly into wide valleys where it is hard to imagine that steep ravines are so nearby.
Not only do the gorges themselves form their own natural regions, but the plateaux across which they cut have also been given the status of independent natural regional units. So the Central Wutach Region ("Mittlere Wutachgebiet") lies between the natural regions of the Baar to the north and the Klettgau Hills ("Klettgauer Hügelland") to the south, both of which are similar in terms of their bedrock. The region is also a bridge between the mountains of the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura.
Gorge system of the Wutach and its tributaries.
Upper gorge in the basement rock.
At the exit of the wide bottomed valleys of the Gutach and the Haslach from the eastern Black Forest, which were heavily shaped by the ice age, the streams often cut through narrow gorges as the gradient increases suddenly. In the granite that initially dominates, dark, trackless ravines alternate with short sections where the valley broadens out. The rocky sides of the valley also have naturally high proportion of conifers. Downstream, in the area of the less resistant beds of bunter sandstone, spectacular gorge scenery is absent. The side gorges of this upper section of the main gorge are narrow; several would be impassible without man-made paths being laid through them.
The gorge of the main headstream, the Gutach, begins with a noticeably increased gradient just above the Gutach Bridge (built 1900) on the Höllental Railway, whose stone arches support a span of 64 metres, then the longest in Germany. The deepest point of the Haslach Gorge, which joins from the right, is the "Rechenfelsen", a short ravine that is a good 20 metres deep. The Rötenbach Gorge, which merges from the left soon thereafter, culminates in a waterfall with two cascades and a total height of 6 metres. Below the few remains of Stallegg Castle the Wutach is quietened by a small reservoir belonging to the Stallegg Electricity Works and built in 1895. Shortly afterwards the stream passes the covered, wooden Stallegg Bridge, on the old path between the Fürstenberg estates on either side of the gorge. At point where it is joined by the Reichenbach Gorge the river forces itself through the granite "schrofen" of the trackless Stallegg Gorge ("Stallegger Schlucht"). It ends at the "Räuberschlössle" rocks with their ruined castle, the New Blumberg (also "New Blumegg"). The rocks lie north of the Wutach and are quartz porphyry formation up to 80 metres high that are also called the "Nägelefels" due to the presence of Cheddar Pinks. Near the mill of Schattenmühle and the road crossing the Lotenbach Gorge ("Lotenbachklamm") joins from the right, a granite gorge with four waterfalls up to 8 metres high, as well as a tributary stream that plunges 20 metres into the river.
Valley from Dietfurt and Bad Boll.
As the river enters the Lower and Middle Muschelkalk rock, the typical Black Forest landscape ends. The limestones, which have been heavily deformed and made slippery by the leaching of gypsum deposits, have given rise to a slightly wider V-shaped valley with a great diversity of habitats and constantly changing local relief. For example, extensive tufa formations rise above the footpath on the sunny slopes of the "Schelmenhalde" with its wide, plunging waterfall, whilst, opposite, a Muschelkalk formation called the "Drei Zinnen" ("Three Battlements"), which was once perforated by cavities and has now collapsed, slips downstream on slippery masses of Middle Muschelkalk towards the Wutach. Deciduous forest communities now dominate, although occasional meadows interrupt the riparian woodland.
Further down the valley, initially on the upper slopes, elongated rock faces made of Upper Muschelkalk strata are typical, especially the roughly one-kilometre-long "Rappenfelsen" on the left above the subsiding subsoil. This is where the "Gaisloch", which has collapsed to create an open gorge, joins the main valley. Below it, the oldest and very steep gorge crossing led over the river by the former mill at the Dietfurt; there was a bridge in here in 1614-1632. The centre of the valley was the historic "Badhof" near the Fritz Hockenjos Footbridge; an avenue and the remains of the park have survived.. On a rocky spur above it, New Tannegg Castle (built by about 1200) had to be abandoned before 1500, because it had partially collapsed down the precipitous cliff. Immediately below the Boller Waterfall cascades for 40 metres in two stages into the Wutach from the right. This is the highest waterfall in the Wutach Gorge and was, when Bad Boll was still a spa resort, lit up at night. Today it is almost impossible to get to. At the "Felsenweiher", an old backwater below a rock face of the Upper Muschelkalk, the Tannegg Waterfall (named after the ruins of Old Tannegg Castle) tumbles 15 metres over a bizarre tufa formation. Roughly opposite is the "Münzloch", the longest cave of the Wutach Gorge, 84 metres in length.
Middle gorge in main Muschelkalk.
Further downstream, as soon as the Muschelkalk rock faces reach the valley bottom, the canyon-like second gorge section begins. It was the earliest part of the gorge to be developed and remains the most interesting part of the gorge for tourists today. Here the Wutach swings from one rock face to another on its broad gravel bed, sometimes undercutting the rock, which is left overhanging and is up to about 80 metres high.
The Ludwig Neumann Way ("Ludwig-Neumann-Weg") is one of the most elaborate trail systems maintained by the Black Forest Club and, after almost all the bridges in the original network were destroyed by floods, is exposed but protected by the rock faces. At the very beginning it crosses the "Amselfels" rock, nearly 70 metres high, with views of the "Großer Kanzelfels" ("Great Pulpit Rock") to the north. Parts of its right-hand pulpit collapsed in 1983 about 80 metres into the Wutach. The following long, partly overhanging, rock refuge, "Engländerfels" was named in memory of an Englishman who fell to his death here in 1906. The "Forellenfelsen" also recalls the early English fashion of travelling to the Black Forest for "fishing holidays" in the Wutach Gorge. The central rest stop in the middle gorge is in a spot where the valley widens and is called the Schurhammer Hut. In the following section, the Wutach sinks largely into crevices in the muschelkalk rocks and re-emerges after 1.3 kilometres at the foot of an overhanging section of the rock face. In 1953, the cavern-like Old Wutach portal by the old "Rümmelesteg" footbridge collapsed; leaving half the suspension bridge anchored to the rock. The "Josefsfelsen" rocks with their crowning rock pinnacle and the "Josefssteg" footbridge commemorate another victim of a fall in 1907. The end of the middle gorge is marked by the covered Canadian Bridge ("Kanadiersteg"), which was built in 1976 by Canadian engineers. It runs from mouth of the Gauchach to the high mountain spur on the southern side with its old spur castle, the Hörnle.
Achdorf valley in the Keuper and Lower Jurassic.
After the Gauchach Gorge joins the main artery from the north, the valley widens again and is open, accessible and populated. At the first road bridge is the "Wutachmühle" with its sawmill and kiosk. The almost undeveloped valley sides with their rugged, sometimes bizarre relief, leave one to conjecture at the almost continual slip and creep processes of the few remaining solid formations of Keuper rock. Four of the nine villages that once existed in this so-called "Achdorfer Tal" (Achdorf Valley ) have fallen victim to the unstable subsoil and been abandoned. Clearly visible are three large landslides: the Eschach Slip ("Eschacher Bergsturz") on the eastern precipice of the "Scheffheu" (1880, 1940 and 1966), the 1966 landslide at Eichberg with its resulting waterfall and the 1976 landslide on repeatedly closed "Wellblechsträßle" at the foot of the "Buchberg". The larger villages of Aselfingen and Achdorf lie at the mouths of the Aubach valley (with its Mundelfingen Waterfall and ruins of "Hardegg") and Krottenbach valley. To the east, prominent mountain landforms of the "Eichberg" (913.6 metres) and the "Buchberg" (879.9 metres) tower above the valley; between them the upper Aitrach valley ends 170 metres above the Wutach valley seemingly in mid-air, forming the Blumberg Gate ("Blumberger Pforte"). Below the former castle of Blumberg the Schleifebach Falls cascade into the valley (4, 9 and 5 metres high).
Lower Gorge ("Wutachflühen") in the Main Muschelkalk.
After turning sharply at the prominent Wutach Knee ("Wutachknie") the Wutach crosses and important fault line, south of which the Upper Muschelkalk, which descends deeply, accompanies the upper valley slopes once more in the form of rock faces. In this third gorge, the "Flühen" (Alemannic: rock faces), the dimensions of the gorge and its rock faces reach their greatest extent. Here lies the heavily fissured Swabian Jura with its highest precipice, the "Walenhalde"(350 m). The "Flühen" are, however, exhibit less variety and were did not become a tourist attraction until the opening of the Wutach Valley Railway, which crosses over them.
The narrow valley begins with the little Letterngraben Waterfall on the right hand side of the valley and with waterfalls in the "Sackpfeiferdobel" and "Sturzdobel" (15 metres, tufa crags) on the left hand side. The actual "Wutachflühen" are a 3-kilometre-long, up to 85-metre-high rock wall in the left hand side; it is the greatest outcropping of the Upper Muschelkalk in Germany. Rock pinnacles such as the "Lunzistein" (also "Brautfluh", about 15 metres high) or the "Mannheimer Felsen" break out of the jagged rocks. Opposite, on a free-standing, 30-metre-high rock plateau, are the ruins of Blumegg Castle. The counterpart of the Gutach Bridge at the start of the Lower Gorge is the viaduct of the Wutach Valley Railway, which marks the lower end of the Wutach gorges.
Gauchach Gorge.
The most important side gorge, the Gauchach Gorge, which contains the Gauchach stream, is characterised by its narrowness and its cascade-like stream bed formed in the beds of the Upper Muschelkalk. Roughly in the middle of the gorge it is joined near the old mill of "Bergmühle" by the rather straight, rugged ravine known as the "Engeschlucht" through which the "Tränkebach" stream runs. Together with the Gauchach and Wutach Gorge it forms the Bachheim Gorge Rectangle ("Bachheimer Schluchtenviereck"). Here, too, at low water it drains away underground to the Wutach.
After the valley broadens out below the Gauchach Viaduct (which carries the Bundesstraße 31) the first narrow section begins near the restored and functional mill of "Guggenmühle". The actual gorge begins near the castle ruins of the "Grünburg" (wall remains measuring 15 x 12 m) and the "Lochmühle" mill, which was destroyed in a flood. Opposite stands the "Grünburg Chapel" with a votive picture of a flood in 1804 and again in 1895. Below the ruins of the "Neuenburg", which is barely recognisable following a landslip, the "Burgmühle" Hiking Hostel run by the Friends of Nature acts as a tourist base. In the lowest part of the gorge an educational path leads past impressive tufas and communities of giant horsetail.


Leiobunum crassipalpe

Leiobunum crassipalpe is a species of harvestman in the family Sclerosomatidae. It is found in North America.


Carex aggregata

Carex aggregata is a species of sedge that was first described by Kenneth Mackenzie in 1910. It is native to the eastern United States and Canada.


Skirne gas field

Skirne which also includes the Byggve deposit is an offshore gas field in the North Sea located east of the Heimdal gas field and from Stavanger, Norway. The depth of the water in the field area is . Both Skirne and Byggve are considered satellites to Heimdal field and are connected to it by subsea pipelines. TotalFinaElf which is the operator had received the approval from Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for development of the fields in 2002. The company holds 40% interest in the project. Other stakeholders are Petoro and Centrica.
Both Skirne and Byggve have an estimated of natural gas and about 10 million barrels of condensate, combined.
Skirne deposit.
The Skirne field was discovered in 1990. and consists of Middle Jurassic sandstones of the Brent Group. Skirne deposit lies deep.
Byggve deposit.
The Byggve field is located east of the Heimdal gas field and was discovered in 1991. and consists of Middle Jurassic sandstones of the Brent Group. Byggve deposit lies deep.
Production.
Production at Skirne and Byggve started in 2004. Expected project duration is 6 years and produce of gas and of condensate.
The fields are interconnected through two single-well tie-backs and transported to treatment facilities at Heimdal Gas Center, from which the processed gas is then exported to the United Kingdom through the Vesterled pipeline.
Total investment including the Vale satellite has been nearly 4 billion NOK which also included modifications on Heimdal, drilling operations, subsea templates and pipelines.


Genoplesium pumilum

Genoplesium pumilum, commonly known as the green midge orchid in Australia, and the yellow gumland leek orchid in New Zealand is a small terrestrial orchid native to south-eastern Australia and New Zealand. It has a single thin leaf fused to the flowering stem and up to twenty five green to yellowish-green flowers which sometimes have red markings. Australian and New Zealand authorities use the name "Corunastylis pumila".
Description.
"Genoplesium pumilum" is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, herb with an underground tuber and a single thin leaf long and fused to the flowering stem with the free part long. Between five and twenty five green to yellowish-green red flowers are crowded along a flowering stem long and taller than the leaf. The flowers lean forwards and are about long, wide and sometimes have red markings. As with others in the genus, the flowers are inverted so that the labellum is above the column rather than below it. The dorsal sepal is egg-shaped, about long and wide, sometimes with a small gland on its tip. The lateral sepals are linear to lance-shaped, about long, wide, spread apart from each other and often have a gland at the tip. The petals are egg-shaped, about long and wide with hairless margins but sometimes a gland on the tip. The labellum is egg-shaped, thick and fleshy, long, wide with fine teeth along its edges. There is a callus in the centre of the labellum and extending almost to its tip. Flowering occurs between January and May in Australia and between February and October in New Zealand.
Taxonomy and naming.
The green midge orchid was first formally described in 1853 by Joseph Dalton Hooker who gave it the name "Prasophyllum pumilum" and published the description in "Flora Novae-Zelandiae". In 1989, David Jones and Mark Clements changed the name to "Genoplesium pumilum" and in 2002 changed the name again to "Corunastylis pumila". The specific epithet ("pumilum") is a Latin word meaning "dwarfish" or "little".
Distribution and habitat.
"Genoplesium pumilum" grows in wet heath, wallum and the edges of swamps. In Tasmania it grows on buttongrass plains and in New Zealand on sparsely vegetated gumland scrub. In New South Wales it occurs mainly in coastal districts and in Victoria in the far east and on French Island. It is also common in coastal areas of Tasmania and in New Zealand is found on the North and Chatham Islands.


Deconica pseudobullacea

Deconica pseudobullacea is a species of mushroom in the family Strophariaceae.


Cratosoma pictum


Utricularia inaequalis

Utricularia inaequalis is an annual terrestrial carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus "Utricularia" (family Lentibulariaceae). It is endemic to the southwestern coastal region of Western Australia.


Candida glabrata

Candida glabrata is a species of haploid yeast of the genus "Candida", previously known as "Torulopsis glabrata". Despite the fact that no sexual life cycle has been documented for this species, "C. glabrata" strains of both mating types are commonly found. C". glabrata" is generally a commensal of human mucosal tissues, but in today's era of wider human immunodeficiency from various causes (for example, therapeutic immunomodulation, longer survival with various comorbidities such as diabetes, and HIV infection), "C. glabrata" is often the second or third most common cause of candidiasis as an opportunistic pathogen. Infections caused by "C. glabrata" can affect the urogenital tract or even cause systemic infections by entrance of the fungal cells in the bloodstream (Candidemia), especially prevalent in immunocompromised patients.
Clinical relevance.
"C. glabrata" is of special relevance in nosocomial infections due to its innately high resistance to antifungal agents, specifically the azoles. Besides its innate tolerance to antifungal drugs, other potential virulence factors contribute to "C. glabrata" pathogenicity. One of them is the expression of a series of adhesins genes. These genes, which in "C. glabrata" are mostly encoded in the subtelomeric region of the chromosome, have their expression highly activated by environmental cues, so that the organism can adhere to biotic and abiotic surfaces in microbial mats. Adhesin expression is the suspected first mechanism by which "C. glabrata" forms fungal biofilms, proved to be more resistant to antifungals than the planktonic cells.
"C. glabrata" genome frequently undergoes rearrangements that are hypothesized to contribute to the improvement of this yeast's fitness towards exposure to stressful conditions, and some authors consider that this property is connected to the virulence potential of this yeast.
Diagnosis.
Cultures are an effective method for identifying non-albicans vaginal infections. Urinalyses are less accurate in this process. The culture may take several days to grow, but the identification of the yeast species is quick once the yeast is isolated. Skin disease diagnosis is difficult, as cultures collected from swabs and biopsies will test negative for fungus and a special assessment is required. Listed under the 'Rare Diseases' database on the NIH web site, "Torulopsis glabrata", or "Candida glabrata" can also be found on the CDC's web site. Although listed as the second most virulent yeast after "Candida albicans", the fungus is becoming more and more resistant to common treatments like fluconazole. Like many "Candida" species, "C. glabrata" resistance to Echinocandin is also increasing, leaving expensive and toxic antifungal treatments available for those infected. Although high mortality rates are listed, assessment of the critical nature of a glabrata infection is a gray area.
"C. glabrata" ferments and assimilates only glucose and trehalose, opposing to other "Candida" species and this repertoire of sugar utilization is used by several commercially available kits for identification.
Treatment.
A major phenotype and potential virulence factor that "C. glabrata" possesses is low-level intrinsic resistance to the azole medications, which are the most commonly prescribed antifungal (antimycotic) medications. These medications, including fluconazole and ketoconazole, are "not effective in 15–20% of cases" against "C. glabrata". It is still highly vulnerable to polyene medications such as amphotericin B and nystatin, along with variable vulnerability to flucytosine and caspofungin. However, intravenous amphotericin B is a medication of last resort, causing among other side effects, chronic kidney failure. Amphotericin B vaginal suppositories are used as an effective form of treatment in combination with boric acid capsules as they are not absorbed into the bloodstream.
A first-line treatment for vaginal infections may be the use of terconazole 7-day cream. Several courses may be needed. The cure-rate for this treatment is approximately 40%. Recurrences are common, causing chronic infections and spread to other areas such as skin and scalp. Blood infections might be best assessed per symptoms if other areas are involved.
An experimental, but effective second-line treatment for chronic infections, is the use of boric acid. Compounding pharmacies can create boric acid vaginal suppositories. Use of Vitamin E oil may be used in conjunction to combat irritation. Amphotericin B vaginal suppositories have also been used in case studies to treat chronic infections, both symptomatic and asymptomatic. Borax and boric acid may be used for persistent scalp and skin infections.
Phylogenetic relationship.
The currently assigned genus name of "Candida" can lead to confusion. Compared with other potential pathogens of the genus (such as "C. albicans" or "C. auris"), "C. glabrata" is more closely related to "Saccharomyces cerevisiae." In fact, "C. glabrata" belongs to the group of "Nakaseomyces" inside the whole genome duplication clade within Saccharomycetaceae. The whole genome duplication event occurred about 90 million years ago, whereas phylogenetic studies indicate that the common ancestor between "C. glabrata" and "C. albicans" is dated between 200 and 300 million years ago. The largest phylogenetic study to date about "Saccharomycotina," also known as budding yeasts, indicated in 2018 that the (currently construed) genus "Candida" is found in Pichiaceae, CUG-Ser1 clade, Phaffomycetaceae and Saccharomycetaceae. Consequently, despite that the name "Candida" evokes a unitary notion of candidiasis, the pathogenic power of some budding yeasts is a paraphyletic trait shared by several subphyla with different kinds of metabolism.


Pachylaelaps virago

Pachylaelaps virago is a species of mite in the family Pachylaelapidae.


Clavularia frankliniana

Clavularia frankliniana is a species of colonial soft coral in the family Clavulariidae. It is found in the southern Atlantic Ocean and the waters around Antarctica. It was first described in 1902 by the French zoologist Louis Roule.
Description.
"Clavularia frankliniana" is a stoloniferous soft coral. It forms small colonies of polyps with eight tentacles which are up to high and are usually white.
Distribution and habitat.
"Clavularia frankliniana" is native to the Antarctic Peninsula, the coasts of the Antarctic continent and the nearby island groups. It occurs at depths down to about and grows on rocks or other hard substrates.
Ecology.
This coral contains the chemical unpalatable chimyl alcohol for defensive purposes. This is insufficient to prevent the nudibranch Tritoniella belli from feeding on it, and the nudibranch incorporates the substance into its own tissues, making it distasteful to predatory starfish such as "Odontaster validus", "Perknaster fuscus" and "Acodontaster conspicuus". Reproduction in this coral can occur at any time of year and is by fission or by sexual reproduction, with the release of larvae.


Andersonglossum boreale

Andersonglossum boreale, known as northern wild comfrey or just wild comfrey, is a species of flowering plant in the borage family, Boraginaceae. It is native to boreal coniferous and mixed forests in North America, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia and Yukon in Canada, south to New Jersey and Indiana in the United States. It is often found in rocky or sandy soils. It is extirpated (locally extinct) from many of the southern parts of its range.
Description.
Northern wild comfrey is a small, perennial herbaceous plant growing up to tall. The oval-shaped leaves are broader at the base of the plant, growing long and wide with short petioles. The upper leaves clasp the stem. A branching inflorescence is produced at the top of the plant, with several, small, five-petaled blue flowers. The fruit is a bristly nutlet.
Taxonomy.
Northern wild comfrey was originally described as "Cynoglossum boreale" in 1905. It has since been treated as a subspecies or variety of "Cynoglossum virginianum" (now "Andersonglossum virginanum"), a more southerly species, but re-elevated to species as "Andersonglossum boreale". Its first description as "A. boreale" in 2015 was invalid per the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN, Article 36), as the author had created the new combination but did not personally accept it as a species distinct from "A. virginianum":
A 2017 study by the same author, with Pedro Jiménez-Mejías and Robert F. C. Naczi, compared the morphology of digitized herbarium specimens and confirmed its distinctness from "Andersonglossum virginianum", validating the name "Andersonglossum boreale". The study found that "A. boreale" has a shorter calyx length, smaller corolla diameter, and smaller nutlets.


Boorganna Nature Reserve

The Boorganna Nature Reserve is a protected nature reserve located northwest of Taree on the Comboyne Plateau in New South Wales, Australia. The reserve, managed by the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, was gazetted in 1904 and is the second oldest nature reserve in the state. The reserve features various forest types, including stands of sub tropical rainforest of which the large rosewood, yellow carabeen and small leaf fig are particularly noteworthy. The reserve is a remnant of the former extensive rainforest on the Comboyne Plateau. The plateau was cleared between 1900 and 1925. Australian red cedar was logged in the area in the nineteenth century. Originally proposed to be part of the world heritage rainforest group. The exploration, knowledge, uses and history of this area by Indigenous Australians is not well known in the present day. Boorganna Nature Reserve was proposed, but rejected for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage, due to being geographically isolated from other rainforests in the group.
Location and features.
A picnic area next to the forest provides chairs and tables for visitors. Walking trails, a lookout to Rawson Falls and an information board is also provided. Picnics provide a pleasant view of the nearby area. A variety of small birds appear from the edge of the forest. The reserve is situated north of , with access via . Form the southwest, the reserve is situated from ; and is approximately from the town of . The reserve lies to the south of the Oxley Highway, enabling access via and .
Geology and climate.
The reserve receives an average annual rainfall of . The climate is sub tropical, though at an elevation ranging from , it is cooler than at the coast nearby. Soils are derived from Miocene basalt, which provide a deep red loam. Below the basalt are less fertile sedimentary rocks. The western area of the reserve where it adjoins the Great Dividing Range has partly eroded, forming areas of cliffs, rocks and shallow soils. Deep gullies, isolated hills and sharp edged rocky ridges occur here. Rocks include pebbly mudstone, conglomerate siltstone and shale. Serpentinite outcrops can also be seen.
Fauna.
Animals are seldom seen in the rainforest, being nocturnal. However, many species live in the reserve. Such as a bats, wallabies, possums, gliders, spotted quoll, platypus, bandicoots, pademelons, bush rats, snakes, lizards and antechinus.
Bird life is varied and extensive with around a hundred species recorded. Many rainforest pigeons frequent the reserve such as the rose crowned fruit dove and wompoo fruit dove. As well as other seldom seen species such as the noisy pitta, green catbird, and figbird.
Invertebrate biology is not so well understood. However, a vast number of insects, arachnids, molluscs, worms and other small creatures live in the rainforest. Leeches are often noticed by bushwalkers after rain. Red triangle slugs and blue planarian live on the forest floor. Tree dwelling snails may be found here.
Flora.
Sub tropical rainforest.
The jungle or sub tropical rainforest features a dark forest with many large trees. Several species grow to great height and a broad trunk diameter, such as yellow carabeen, small leaf fig, Moreton Bay fig, rosewood, black booyong, giant stinging tree, pigeonberry ash, brush box and silver quandong. Other smaller plants of interest include the walking stick palm and the Macleay laurel.
Boorganna Nature Reserve features several plants at or near their most southern limit of natural distribution. Such as the sour cherry, purple cherry, white apple, turnipwood and the red carabeen.
The Antarctic beech is now considered extinct at Boorganna. However, some of its associated species still persist at Boorganna. Antarctic Beech has been recorded at four nearby sites in the Comboyne area, growing in cool stream side rainforests at elevations ranging from 570 to 630 metres above sea level.
Warm temperate rainforest.
Below the more fertile basalt is a poorer soil type. Warm temperate species are more frequently seen here, such as the coachwood, watergum, sassafras and lilly pilly.
Gully rainforest.
Gully rainforest occurs south of Mumford's Creek, in steep sided narrow gullies. Plant species from the sub-tropical and warm temperate rainforest occur here. They include whalebone tree, walking stick palms and the Bangalow palm.
Dry rainforest.
Where the soil is shallow, and conditions are exposed to winds and fire is infrequent, dry rainforest occurs. Rainforest tree species in this area include the grey myrtle and shatterwood.
Eucalyptus forest.
Eucalyptus forest occurs in areas where fires often occur. In the wetter areas are Sydney blue gum, brush box, tallowwood, and New England blackbutt. Some of the tallowwoods are particularly tall and impressive in this area. The drier eucalyptus areas are subject to higher winds, frequent fires and shallow less fertile soils. Trees here include the black sheoak.
Fungi.
At Boorganna Nature Reserve fungi is noticeable and often colourful and spectacular, particularly after rain in the autumn.
The bracket rainbow fungus often appears on fallen logs.


Brazos Electric Power Cooperative

Brazos Electric Power Cooperative is an electrical generation and transmission cooperative based in Waco, Texas. In March 2021, it filed for bankruptcy protection as a result of losses arising from the February 2021 North American ice storm.
Operations.
In 2013, Brazos began constructing its current headquarters in Waco's Texas Central Industrial park.
Brazos operates four plants which can produce up to 2,909 megawatts of electricity. Brazos was an initial investor in the Comanche Peak Nuclear Generating Station but later sold its interest to TXU. Brazos also began purchasing energy from Duke Energy's Lapetus Solar project in Andrews County, Texas via a power purchase agreement in January 2020.
Brazos serves 16 local utility cooperatives and three municipal-owned electric companies.
Congressional Testimony.
In 1967, Brazos sent general manager H. A. Dalton to appear before the 90th United States Congress to give testimony on introduced amendments to the Federal Power Act which were seeking to ensure electrical power service throughout the nation in the event of an emergency. During the hearing Brazos' representative would affirm that the legislation would help prevent power loss, as had been seen during a local blackout in November of 1965.
Lawsuit.
The Brazos Electric Power Cooperative was brought to court by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) over the TECQ denying an ad valorem tax exemption which ultimately would be settled in the Texas Supreme Court in May of 2019. In the case, the TCEQ claimed that heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs), devices the Texas Legislature considers "pollution control property," should not be exempt from the previously mentioned tax and that the legislature did not have the ability to give said exemption. The court would rule that the legislature had the ability to exempt such generators and upheld the tax exemption and that the commission had in fact abused its discretion.
Bankruptcy filing.
As a result of the February 2021 North American ice storm, Brazos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Because the storm had severely disrupted energy supplies in Texas for days, leading to a dramatic rise in the price of electricity, the company said it had received invoices from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) which, when combined, amounted to over $2.1 billion. Brazos said the massive bill forced it to file for bankruptcy protection to shield itself, its member cooperatives, and consumers, from the effect of trying to meet the cost.


Selden Neck State Park

Selden Neck State Park is a island and public recreation area on the Connecticut River in the town of Lyme, Connecticut. Accessible only by boat, the state park has four areas for primitive, riverside camping. Hiking, fishing, and hunting are also available. The park was among the first parcels secured for park purposes by the state, with initial land purchases on the island made in 1917. It is managed by Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Setting.
Selden Neck State Park is located on Selden Island, and is not actually a neck or peninsula. It is located on the east side of the Connecticut River south of Gillette Castle State Park, and is separated from the mainland by Selden Creek, land that is owned by the Nature Conservancy. The roughly lozenge-shaped island is about at its widest point and about long. It is primarily wooded except for a fringe of tidal marshes, and has a high point of .
Features.
The island is entirely roadless, but there are hiking trails on it. The main campground is located on the river side near the northern end. The island also has the remains of a quarry, located near the southeastern end. Begun in the late 19th century, the quarry provided red sandstone pavers for New York City and other regional cities. In addition to the quarry itself, the remains of a causeway for bringing stone from the quarry to the shore also survive.
The island also has a documented prehistory. Excavations on the island in the 1980s uncovered a sizable Middle Woodland Period village, with radiocarbon dates to c. 1000 CE. Stone tools, pottery fragments, and animal bones are among the many artifacts found in the excavation, which only covered an estimated 2% of the site, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.


Indiana Dunes State Park

Indiana Dunes State Park is an Indiana State Park located in Porter County, Indiana, United States, east of Chicago. The park is bounded by Lake Michigan to the northwest, and is surrounded by as well as within the authorized boundaries of Indiana Dunes National Park, a unit of the National Park Service; the NPS owns the water from the ordinary high water mark to offshore. The Dunes Nature Preserve makes up the bulk of eastern part of the park, and includes most of the park’s hiking trails and dune landscape. This was one of the first places Richard Lieber considered when establishing the Indiana State Park system. Like all Indiana state parks, there is a fee for entrance. Indiana Dunes State Park was established in 1925 and designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974.
Preserving the Indiana Dunes has resulted from the efforts of many citizens and politicians.
Geology.
The beaches were formed by winds coming off Lake Michigan, which drop sand when the wind hits plants, dunes, and hills. As the lake level of Lake Michigan dropped at the end of the Ice Age, the shoreline receded, and new dunes were formed along the lakeshore. Vegetation took over the previous dunes, and eventually forests grew on top of them. There are "blowouts" along the dunes, where dead stumps were revealed after the wind blew away the sand from on top of them; the most notable such blowout is Big Blowout.
History.
Native Americans used the area for years, primarily the Potawatomi and Miami people. The Dunes were along trade routes used by Native Americans. In the early 19th century, the state park area was home to the settlements of Petit Fort and City West.
Dunes Nature Preserve.
The Nature Preserve covers the eastern 2/3 of the state park, . It is accessible only on foot. All eight of the park's trails enter the nature preserve, offering easy to rugged experiences amongst the dunes. The highlights of the preserve include:
Designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974, the preserve also contains the Ancient Pines Nature Area, a prehistoric forest now exposed by dune blowouts.
Blowouts.
Blowouts are formed by the on-shore winds of Lake Michigan. The winds move sand and pile it into dunes. As the dunes form, plants begin to take hold, stabilizing the sand. Beach grasses form a large underground system of roots. This root system, creates stable areas of sand, from which the dune can grow. Slowly other plants take root in the protected areas, including bearberry (kinnikinnick) and small evergreens. Over time, larger plants like sumac, sand cherry, cottonwood, and juniper take hold and replace the grasses and smaller plants.
When a nick forms in this armor of roots and plants, the area can become a blowout. First, open sand becomes accessible to the wind. This can be by animal trails or by human footpaths. A tree could fall in a strong wind, exposing the underlying sand. When this happens, the wind once again works on the loose sand. It undercuts the other roots, and begins moving sand southward. If the winds are strong enough or given enough time, a large blowout can occur, reducing the dunes to lake level over a large area. The 3 largest blowouts in the park are Beach House, Furnessville, and Big Blowout. Each extends into the interdunes, between the front rides of dunes and pockets, into the interdunal troughs. Big Blowout has uncovered an area of dead tree trunks known as the Tree Graveyard.
The park also has a Youth Tent Area separate from the public campground.


Phyllobacterium myrsinacearum

Phyllobacterium myrsinacearum is a Gram-negative bacteria from the genus of "Phyllobacterium" which was isolated from sugar-beet roots. "Phyllobacterium rubiacearum" differs from "Phyllobacterium myrsinacearum" in only two nucleotides. Further analysis indicate that "Phyllobacterium myrsinacearum" and "Phyllobacterium rubiacearum" should be classified as only species.


Encephalartos lanatus

Encephalartos lanatus (Olifants river cycad) is a species of cycad, a plant belonging to the family Zamiaceae growing in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Its specific epithet, "lanatus", means wooly in Latin.
Description.
It is an arborescending portable plant with a 1-1.5 m high stem with a diameter of 25–35 cm which sometimes has suffers or branching off the base.
The leaves are 100 cm long and bluish green, almost silvery. They are covered with a thick coat, from which the specific name of this plant is derived. The yellowish spine is straight, with the upper part clearly curved. The leaflets, 10–14 cm long, are arranged on the spine in the opposite way, with an almost horizontal insertion angle; the margins are full and smooth. Basal leaflets are smaller, and often reduced to thorns.
It is a goddess species with male-shaped ovoids of red colour, 25–30 cm long and 5–6 cm wide. Female cones, of the same shape, are 25–30 cm long and have a diameter of 12–15 cm. Both are supported by a 2–3 cm long peduncle and each plant produces one to four.
The seeds, 25–30 mm long, have an oval or oblong shape and are covered with a yellow tapestry.
Distribution and habitat.
This species is widespread in a very limited area of the provinces of Mpumalanga and Gauteng, South Africa, at the Olifants River basin. Its habitat consists of steep rocky slopes covered with prairie, with warm weather in summer and cold in winter when frosts often occur and with an annual precipitation of between 660 and 770 mm. It grows at an altitude of about 1,500 m above mean sea level.
Conservation.
The IUCN Red List lists "E. lanatus" as a near threatened species. Although it is present in a very limited territory, in fact, its population is currently stable. The species is included in Appendix I to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)


SCANA

SCANA Corporation was a regulated electric and natural gas public utility. The company was based in Cayce, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia, South Carolina. Following the Nukegate scandal, the company's stock fell and the company was in disrepair. In January 2019, SCANA was acquired by Dominion Energy. The corporate name SCANA was not an acronym, but was taken from the letters in South Carolina (S []-C-A-[roli] N-A).
The company operated 4 hydroelectric plants, 1 pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant, 4 coal fossil fuel power station, the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station, 1 combined cycle power plant, 1 "re-powered" formerly coal-fired plant with a natural gas-powered steam unit and two combined cycle units, and 16 simple cycle combustion turbines. The total output was over 5,800 MW.
History.
SCANA traced its history to 1846, when a group of Charleston business leaders formed the Charleston Gas Light Company.
Its corporate structure dated to 1924, with the formation of Broad River Power Company.
In 1925, Broad River bought the electric and gas properties of Columbia Railway, Gas and Electric Company.
In 1937, the Broad River Power Company changed its name to South Carolina Electric & Gas Company.
In 1942, SCE&G acquired Lexington Water Power Company. Lexington Water Power Company had built the Saluda Dam, which created the Lake Murray, and was the largest man-made barrier built for power production in the world when completed in 1930.
In 1948, the company acquired South Carolina Power Company, successor to Charleston Gas Light, from the Southern Company. In 1984, SCE&G reorganized as a holding company, SCANA, with SCE&G as its leading subsidiary.
In 1997, the company sold Scana Petroleum Resources Inc. for $110 million.
In 1999, the company sold its retail propane assets for $86 million.
In February 2000, the company acquired Public Service of North Carolina for $673 million.
In March 2004, the company acquired 50,000 retail natural gas customers formerly served by Energy America in Georgia.
On February 2, 2015, Carolina Gas Transmission was sold to Dominion Resources $492.9 million. Formed in November 2006, Carolina Gas Transmission was an interstate natural gas pipeline in South Carolina and Georgia regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Its predecessors were the South Carolina Pipeline Company and SCG Pipeline Company. Carolina Gas Transmission received gas from Southern Natural Gas Company, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation and the Southern LNG terminal at Elba Island, Georgia.
On February 23, 2015, SCANA Communications was sold to Spirit Communications for $150 million. SCANA Communications operated fiber optic long line and access networks throughout South Carolina and in parts of North Carolina and Georgia in partnership with regional interexchange carriers. SCANA Communications also offered clients with Point of presence (POP) equipment co-location at designated sites along the fiber route and had a state-of-the-art data center in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. Services included site acquisition, zoning support, build-to-suite, site management of existing towers, shared tenant colocation centres, and fiber backbone access.
After having spent $9 billion on construction, in July 2017, SCE&G abandoned the construction of two additional AP1000 units at the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station, following the bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric Company. Some investors and ratepayers filed lawsuits against SCE&G, and some federal and state agencies started investigations. SCE&G proposed replacing the nuclear capacity with gas and solar generation with shareholders absorbing the costs of the abandoned nuclear plant and customer charges reverting to pre-nuclear project rates.
In May 2018, the company acquired the Columbia Energy Center in Gaston, South Carolina for $180 million.
In January 2019, the company was acquired by Dominion Energy. By March 2019, the SCANA, SCE&G and PSNC names were retired.
Divisions.
SCE&G (South Carolina Electric & Gas Company) was engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity to approximately 719,000 customers in a service area encompassing approximately in 24 counties of South Carolina and the purchase, sale and transportation of natural gas to approximately 368,000 customers in a service area encompassing approximately in all 35 counties of South Carolina.
SCANA Energy, based in Atlanta, Georgia, was the second largest marketer of natural gas in Georgia, serving more than 425,000 customers. SCANA Energy also had a regulated unit, SCANA Energy Regulated Division, selected by the Georgia Public Service Commission to serve as the state’s only regulated natural gas provider.
PSNC Energy (Public Service North Carolina Energy) is a regulated public utility engaged primarily in purchasing, transporting, distributing and selling natural gas to approximately 563,000 customers in a service area encompassing approximately in 28 counties of North Carolina. Its headquarters is in Gastonia, North Carolina.


Oryza officinalis

Oryza officinalis is species of flowering plant in the genus "Oryza" (rice) native to India, Nepal, the eastern Himalaya, southeast Asia, south-central and southeast China, Hainan, the Philippines, New Guinea, and the Northern Territory and Queensland in Australia. A perennial diploid with the CC rice genome, it can reach in height. It is the namesake of a widespread species complex.
Pests.
"O. officinalis" in Sukhothai Province, Thailand was reported in 1990 to be highly resistant to tungro and various other pests, and already in use in several cultivars.


Idemitsu Kosan

 is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries, produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products, and also operates gas stations under the brand and (until 2023) in its own "Idemitsu" and "Shell" brands, the latter under license of Royal Dutch Shell.
Idemitsu is the second largest petroleum refiner in Japan, after Eneos. It was ranked as the 262nd largest company in the world by revenue in Fortune Global 500 (2008). It is number 26 in petroleum refining. Idemitsu Kosan is listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and, since absorbing Showa Shell Sekiyu in 2019, is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 index; however, it is not a constituent of the TOPIX 100 index (instead, it is a constituent of the TOPIX Mid400 index).
History.
Early 20th century.
Sazō Idemitsu founded in 1911, selling lubricant oil for Nippon Oil in Moji, northern Kyushu. He expanded to selling fuel oil for fishing boats in Shimonoseki.
After success in Japan, Idemitsu & Co. expanded to Manchuria (China) in 1914 where the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railroad Co. Ltd. was a major customer of lubricant. A branch was opened in Dalian, northeast China and Idemitsu attempted to enter the Chinese market that was dominated by western companies like Standard Oil and the Asiatic Petroleum Company (a Shell subsidiary). The company extended through northern China and into Korea and Taiwan.
After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1932 the oil trade became government controlled and Idemitsu was forced to scale back. Instead he went into transport by oil tanker. In 1940 the headquarters were moved to Tokyo and the name changed to the current Idemitsu Kosan K.K. (kabushiki kaisha: stock company). With the Japanese military expansion and United States joining the Pacific War the government took control of all industries.
Postwar era.
After the war Idemitsu Kosan lost its overseas trade with the Allied occupation of Japan. It was among the ten petroleum suppliers selected by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and cut its ties with Nippon Oil. Idemitsu began importing naphtha (an intermediate oil product) first from the United States and later from Venezuela and Iran. The protectionist Oil Industry Law helped Idemitsu against foreign competition in Japan, but also made owning its own refineries important. Idemitsu's first Tokuyama Refinery opened in 1957. This was followed by the Chiba oil refinery in 1963, Hyogo oil refinery in 1970, the Hokkaido oil refinery in 1973, and the Aichi oil refinery in 1975.
In 1953 Idemitsu sent its large tanker "Nisshomaru" to Iran to purchase oil. Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mosaddeq had recently nationalized the oil fields and was under British-led embargo (Abadan Crisis). Idemitsu managed to buy the oil at 30% below market price and displeased the British. This was popular with the Japanese public but got Idemitsu in conflict with the Japanese government and MITI. Later the same year was the 1953 Iranian coup d'état. In the 1960s, Idemitsu imported crude oil from Russia. Again, it got a good price at 40% below market value but angered the United States who decided to boycott Idemitsu when buying fuel for its military jets in Japan. Idemitsu called the boycott "an odd Christmas gift" but "utterly negligible." In 1978 it broke off contracts with the Soviet Union.
The company also came in conflict with the Petroleum Association of Japan which was set up by MITI to restrict production and Idemitsu even left the organization. In 1965 the seamen's union went on strike, the first of its kind in Japan. This led to petroleum shortages. Idemitsu then ignored the quotas and produced at full speed. When the price control and production quotas were removed in 1966, Idemitsu rejoined the PAJ. To please the MITI, Sazō Idemitsu's younger brother Keisuke Idemitsu took over as company president, while Sazō became chairman of the board, keeping the actual control.
The company continued its vertical integration strategy of controlling the whole supply chain with more tankers and opening petrol depots and warehouses. In 1976 it started drilling for oil and gas in the offshore Aga Field in the Niigata Prefecture (Sea of Japan). Commercial production began in 1984. Idemitsu took interest in foreign oil fields, and in 1987 it started an oil field in southeast Turkey with Finnish company Neste Oy. Idemitsu acquired stake in Norwegian Snorre oil field and in Australia, as well as participating in oil drilling around the world.
The company diversified into coal, importing from Australia and bought mines in Muswellbrook, New South Wales and Ebenezer, Queensland. It became the largest coal mining company in Japan and developed the coal cartridge system for small users. It worked on geothermal power experiments and uranium mining in Canada with Cameco and Cogema. The sharp 1985 price drop on oil made Idemitsu's non-oil operations less profitable.
Japanese import restrictions on oil once again came under debate. As in 1962, Idemitsu favored opening up to foreign competition, in opposition to most of the Japanese oil industry. The Japanese government eventually settled on a compromise that would slowly open for free importation and remove production quotas on refineries.
As a means of diversifying its business in the wake of global oil shocks, Idemitsu began development of OLED technology in the 1980s, culminating in the development of a practical full-color LED display introduced by Pioneer in the late 1990s. Idemitsu's technology was eventually adapted by Samsung Electronics for use in its Galaxy line of smartphones.
1990s and early 2000s.
By 1997 Idemitsu was the largest seller of fuel oil in Japan, due largely to capital investments by president Shosuke Idemitsu during the 1980s and early 1990s. However, these investments left the company deeply in debt with a speculative credit rating. Akihiko Tembo, the first president from outside the founding family, instituted several reforms to alleviate the company's finances, including cutting retroactive discounts offered to distributors. Tembo also merged parts of the company's operations with Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui Chemicals.
In the 1990s, Idemitsu began opening service stations outside Japan, in Portugal and Puerto Rico, as well as a lubricant factory in the United States. Oil industry deregulation took big leaps with the abolishment of the Special Petroleum Law and self-service pumps became legal. Toward the end of the 1990s, the demand in Japan decreased due to the long economic crisis. The oil industry was too large and many companies merged. At the turn of the century, Idemitsu Kosan was the only major oil refining company in Japan that had not merged. The company was entirely held by the Idemitsu family and company employees. In 1994, Unioil became the exclusive distributor of Idemitsu products in the Philippines.
In 2006 Idemitsu Kosan became publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after an initial public offering (IPO), raising 109.4 billion yen.
Showa Shell merger.
In 2016, Idemitsu management announced plans to merge the company with Showa Shell Sekiyu, the fifth-largest oil wholesaler in Japan. The transaction was opposed by the founding Idemitsu family for several reasons, reportedly including ongoing friction between the family and Tembo's management team, cultural differences between the two companies, geopolitical issues (Idemitsu being a major importer of Iranian oil while Showa Shell would remain partly owned by Saudi Aramco), and pressure from rival JX Nippon Oil & Energy which was simultaneously planning its own merger with TonenGeneral. Without approval from the Idemitsu family for a full merger, company management purchased 31% of Showa Shell in December 2016, and launched partnerships in refining and logistics starting in April 2017.
Showa Shell was ultimately acquired by Idemitsu in 2018; it was absorbed into Idemitsu in 2019.
Oil extraction and shipping.
The daughter company Idemitsu Oil & Gas Co., Ltd. produces about of crude oil per day. The primary sources is Idemitsus stake in Norwegian oil fields in the North Sea (North Sea oil). The first and largest Snorre oil field has been followed by several more. In the Sea of Japan, Idemitsu has oil platforms in Niigata prefecture near Aga and Iwafune, but the production is small. There are exploration projects in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. In Vietnam, the exploration is together with Russian Zarubezhneft and the Vietnam Oil & Gas Group (Petro Vietnam).
Idemitsu Kosan owns 12 oil tankers for international use.
Refining.
Idemitsu owns four refineries:
The Hyogo and Okinawa refineries were closed in 2003 after an agreement that Nippon Oil would supply Idemitsu Kosan with of petroleum products. Tokuyama Refinery was shut down in 2014 as scheduled, in conjunction to the Hokkaido Refinery gaining an increase in oil supply.
There are 30 operating refineries in Japan with total capacity of , giving Idemitsu Kosan a 13% share of the refining capacity. The company claims between 14% and 34% market share for different products.
 Idemitsu Kosan is planning to build the Nghi Son Refinery in Vietnam in a joint venture with Kuwait Petroleum International, Vietnamese state-owned PetroVietnam and Mitsui Chemicals. With construction planned to start in 2010, it would be ready in 2013 and become the second in Vietnam after the Dung Quat Refinery. Idemitsu Kosan owns a 35.1% stake in the $6 billion, refinery. Idemitsu has opened an office in Hanoi and is considering using the refinery as a base for expanding into Vietnam and surrounding countries.
Petroleum.
Idemitsu operates 5,250 service stations, many under the Apollo brand.
Petrochemical products.
Idemitsu Petrochemical runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. It produces a variety of basic chemicals supplied to chemical industries, in Japan and abroad. In Europe it markets through Idemitsu Chemicals Europe PLC. Basic chemicals produced includes olefins such as ethylene and propylene, and aromatics like benzene, para-xylene and styrene monomer. It is also a supplier of plastics for uses such as CD pressing and circuit boards. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
Lubricants, Idemitsu's first product is a major area. It also produces fluorescent materials for OLED displays. A joint venture with German company BASF, BASF Idemitsu Co. Ltd., produces 1,4-Butanediol for the Japanese market at Idemitsu's Chiba plant. Idemitsu also produces some medical drugs.
Intellectual property.
Following a 2009 cross-licensing agreement between LG Display Co., Ltd. and Idemitsu Kosan's OLED materials business, Idemitsu Kosan purchased a 32.73% stake in Global OLED Technology LLC in June 2010. For $100 million, LG purchased Kodak's organic light emitting diode business in December 2009 and created Global OLED Technology to administer and develop a portfolio of 2,200 patents based on Kodak research.


Eucalyptus sessilis

Eucalyptus sessilis, commonly known as Finke River mallee, red bud mallee or river mallee, is a species of mallee that is native to the Northern Territory and central areas along the border of Western Australia. It has smooth bark, sometimes with ribbon of old bark near the base, lance-shaped to egg-shaped or elliptical adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, creamy yellow flowers and hemispherical fruit.
Description.
"Eucalyptus sessilis" is a mallee with a spreading, straggly habit, that typically grows to a height of , and forms a lignotuber. Its bark is smooth and grey and is shed in long strips or ribbons that sometimes accumulate at the base of the stems. Young plants and coppice regrowth have egg-shaped to broadly lance-shaped leaves that are long and wide. Adult leaves are arranged alternately, the same dull and green to grey-green colour on both sides, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven on a stout, unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds sessile or on pedicels up to long. Mature buds are claret-coloured, oval to spherical, long and wide, with longitudinal ribs and a beaked operculum. Flowering occurs between April and July and the flowers are yellow-cream in colour. The fruit is a woody, usually sessile, hemispherical capsule long and wide with a raised disc and four protruding valves. The seeds are grey-brown to blackish, long and a flattened pyramid to cubic shape.
Taxonomy.
Finke River mallee was first formally described in 1920 by the botanist Joseph Maiden as "Eucalyptus pachyphylla" var. "sessilis" in his book "A Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus". The type specimen was collected by Ernest Giles in 1872 at Glen of Palms in the western Macdonnell Range, to the south of Hermannsburg In 1934, William Blakely raised the subspecies to species status as "E. sessilis" in his book "A Key to the Eucalypts". A common name for this tree is the Finke River (or River) mallee. The specific epithet ("sessilis") refers to the sessile buds and fruit.
Distribution and habitat.
"Eucalyptus sessilis" grows in open shrubland on stony slopes. It is found in the central Northern Territory in an area centred around Alice Springs with a scattered distribution that extends west over the Western Australian border into the Goldfields-Esperance region. It is most often found on rocky ranges particularly the MacDonnell Ranges and Central Ranges in the Northern Territory and the Rawlinson Ranges and Walter James Range in Western Australia. It is also scattered through the Finke River basin, Great Sandy Desert and Burt Plains.
Conservation status.
This mallee is classified as "least concern" under the Northern Territory Government Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1976 and as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Use in horticulture.
It is both drought and frost resistant, attracts birds and grows well in full sun or part shade.


Three Islands National Park

Three Islands and Three Islands Reef are part of the Three Islands Group National Park in Far North Queensland, Australia, in the Coral Sea, northwest of Brisbane, about north-northeast of Cooktown.
The Three Islands Group National Park comprises Three Islands, Two Islands and Rocky Islets, a group of eight islands. They are all located within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The islands are important and protected seabird nesting sites. Access to the Rocky Islets is prohibited, and camping is only permitted on Two Islands (a) — between 1 April and 31 August. A maximum of 10 people for up to 14 days is permitted.