Mast (botany) Mast seeding is defined as the highly variable production of fruit by a population. These intermittent pulses of food resources drive ecosystem-level functions and forest dynamics. The difference between a mast seeding year and a non-mast seeding year can be thousands of acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts, etc. Mast seeding dominantly occurs in wind-pollinated tree species, but has also been observed in grasses and Dipterocarps. Masting, in the strict sense of the term, occurs only in monocarpic (or semelparous) species, whose members reproduce only once during their lifetime, then die. Hypothesis for the evolution of mast seeding can broadly be
Half-mast the politburo of the ZANU–PF. Half-mast Half-mast refers to a flag flying on a ship and half-staff refers to a flag flying below the summit on a pole on land or on a building. In many countries this is seen as a symbol of respect, mourning, distress, or, in some cases, a salute. Strictly speaking, flags are said to be half-mast if flown from ships and half-staff if on land, although not all regional variations of English use "half-staff." The tradition of flying the flag at half-staff began in the 17th century. According to some sources, the flag is lowered