Acacia caffra

Transcript: "Acacia caffra. Flowers November to January with occasional extensions to March. The scent differs from Accia karroo in being not so sickly -is sharper to the nose but nonetheless attractive. The fine thorns are not readily visible. The softness of the foliage can lead one into grabbing at branches only to be be well pricked. The tree is very common along the Buffalo river at King William's Town often growing at the water's edge. In the veld, Acacia karroo often grows among Acacia caffra, the two making an interesting contrast. 30.10.1959. Coming into flower at Kei Bridge on the Komga-Transkei border, At Bashee Bridge between Idutywa and Umtata, and in the Umzimkhulu valley on the Natal border of Transkei. 21.11.1959. Coming into good flower at King William's Town. July 1960. Trees mostly bare but some have straggly leaves adhering. August 1960. Bare. September 1960. Began shooting on trees along rivers early in the month. But leaves began bursting from their buds on trees in dry veld on about the 15th of the month despite lack of rain to stimulate spring growth October 27th 1960. First flowers appearing.

Forest patch on Lynedoch farm, Baviaans River Valley, Bedford

Extract: “Forest Patch on LYNEDOCH farm, Baviaans River Valley, Bedford. This small patch of what can best be described as Woodland/ Forest by virtue of its hybrid condition as influenced by man's chopping activities down the years, lies at the head of what is called Grootkloof on this farm, and is the last patch of such forest up this otherwise dry valley in which the lower slopes receive a much lower precipitation than the upper heights under which the patch of forest persists by virtue of the extra moisture it receives from passing cloud. The forest patch is 27 km NW of Bedford town, and at about 1 000 m a.s.l.

Unilateral vs. bilateral hamstring strength assessments: comparing reliability and inter-limb asymmetries in female soccer players

The aims in the present study were to assess reliability for two unilateral and two bilateral field-based hamstring assessments and compare magnitude, direction and agreement of inter-limb asymmetry between tests and sessions. Twenty-nine female soccer players (age: 21.1±4.5 years; height: 169.7±5.8 cm; body mass: 66.2±6.4 kg) performed three repetitions per leg of unilateral isometric 30° (ISO 30°) and 90° (ISO 90°) knee flexion (KF) tasks, and three repetitions total for a bilateral 90° isometric (kneeling ISO) KF and Nordic hamstring exercise (NHE). Absolute reliability of most methods within- and between-session were acceptable (<10%). Relative reliability within-session demonstrated fair to excellent reliability (ICC≥0.784; lower bound 95%CI ≥0.623). Greater variability in between-session relative reliability was observed during the unilateral tests, demonstrating poor to good (ICC=0.698–0.798; lower bound 95%CI = 0.274–0.638). Bilateral assessments demonstrated similar ranges of poor to excellent (ICC=0.679–0.963; lower bound 95%CI = 0.231–0.790). Agreement between-session for inter-limb asymmetry identification was slight and fair in the unilateral tests, with moderate to substantial agreement demonstrated in the bilateral. Being the most reliable within- and between-sessions, demonstrating substantial agreement in asymmetry between-sessions, the NHE would be most appropriate to identify inter-limb asymmetry and assess chronic changes in hamstring strength

Tree species in unfamiliar places - Graaff-Reinet town

Typed article regarding tree species found in Graaff-Reinet, East Cape Midlands. Trees mentioned include Erythrina caffra, cypresses and Yellowwood

Wild fig

Wild fig essay written over number of years

Wild fig

Wild fig essay written over number of years

Forest patch on Lynedoch farm, Baviaans River Valley, Bedford

Extract: “Forest Patch on LYNEDOCH farm, Baviaans River Valley, Bedford. This small patch of what can best be described as Woodland/ Forest by virtue of its hybrid condition as influenced by man's chopping activities down the years, lies at the head of what is called Grootkloof on this farm, and is the last patch of such forest up this otherwise dry valley in which the lower slopes receive a much lower precipitation than the upper heights under which the patch of forest persists by virtue of the extra moisture it receives from passing cloud. The forest patch is 27 km NW of Bedford town, and at about 1 000 m a.s.l.

Strong "quantum" chaos in the global ballooning mode spectrum of three-dimensional plasmas

The spectrum of ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure-driven (ballooning) modes in strongly nonaxisymmetric toroidal systems is difficult to analyze numerically owing to the singular nature of ideal MHD caused by lack of an inherent scale length. In this paper, ideal MHD is regularized by using a $k$-space cutoff, making the ray tracing for the WKB ballooning formalism a chaotic Hamiltonian billiard problem. The minimum width of the toroidal Fourier spectrum needed for resolving toroidally localized ballooning modes with a global eigenvalue code is estimated from the Weyl formula. This phase-space-volume estimation method is applied to two stellarator cases.Comment: 4 pages typeset, including 2 figures. Paper accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter

Global climate-driven trade-offs between the water retention and cooling benefits of urban greening

Urban greening can potentially help mitigate heat-related mortality and flooding facing the >4 billion urban population worldwide. However, the geographical variation of the relative combined hydrological and thermal performance benefits of such interventions are unknown. Here we quantify globally, using a hydrological model, how climate-driven trade-offs exist between hydrological retention and cooling potential of urban greening such as green roofs and parks. Using a Budyko framework, we show that water retention generally increases with aridity in water-limited environments, while cooling potential favors energy-limited climates. Our models suggest that common urban greening strategies cannot yield high performance simultaneously for addressing both urban heat-island and urban flooding problems in most cities globally. Irrigation, if sustainable, may enhance cooling while maintaining retention performance in more arid locations. Increased precipitation variability with climate change may reduce performance of thinner green-infrastructure more quickly compared to greened areas with thicker soils and root systems. Our results provide a conceptual framework and first-order quantitative guide for urban development, renewal and policymaking

An objective frequency domain method for quantifying confined aquifer compressible storage using Earth and atmospheric tides

The groundwater hydraulic head response to the worldwide and ubiquitous atmospheric tide at 2 cycles per day (cpd) is a direct function of confined aquifer compressible storage. The ratio of the responses of hydraulic head to the atmospheric pressure change is a measure of aquifer barometric efficiency, from which formation compressibility and aquifer specific storage can be determined in situ rather than resorting to laboratory or aquifer pumping tests. The Earth tide also impacts the hydraulic head response at the same frequency, and a method is developed here to quantify and remove this interference. As a result, the barometric efficiency can be routinely calculated from 6-hourly hydraulic head, atmospheric pressure, and modeled Earth tide records where available for a minimum of 15 days duration. This new approach will be of critical importance in assessing worldwide problems of land subsidence or groundwater resource evaluation that both occur due to groundwater abstractio