“This isn’t just being out of sync with our friends. It is morally reprehensible to be turning our back when we see an unfolding genocide.” A welcome clear statement from Chris Hipkins. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/labour-pa...

flowers are out 🌸🌺🌼🏵️

Order came in, baby for scale (thanks @thebooksdesk.bsky.social for the link)

new zealand government reaching new heights of stupidity next year our public dollars will go more to AI grants ($70 million) than all investigator-initiated basic science combined ($56 million in the Marsden fund)

Gus longboy

Hutu (Ascarina lucida) is the first New Zealand native plant shown to have heterodichogamy (explained in ALT) and also the first report of it for Chloranthaceae. Most heterodichogamoous plants are wind pollinated and monoecious. Details in latest @ijpsjournal.bsky.social (see above post)

📢 New publication in NZJE! Patterns of seed rain into exotic plantation forests, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand 🌱 Lead author: Grace Marshall - University of Canterbury newzealandecology.org/nzje/3611

A veritable Karen in the graveyard in today's new #garden post. jury.co.nz/2025/08/31/t...

#book in the mail 😎 Took me ages to find a copy of this! I had Phoenix II but not this one. Pretty close to having all of D.H. Lawrence's books now!

"Informed". They were all informed at different times. Didn't any of them need to give *permission*? FBI base in NZ: Judith Collins knew 78 days before PM, Luxon briefed 6 days before FBI director arrived www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

I normally use Goodreads to track what I've read but I've been filling around with the challenges on Storygraph and made one myself: Reading the regions: Aotearoa. Feel free to join in (better yet think of other 'challenges' for me to fail at)! #pukapuka app.thestorygraph.com/reading_chal...

After a decade of photographing & writing, I finally have an advance copy of my book. It'll be launched 10 October in Wellington and should hit the shops 9 October. Many thanks to talented designer Duncan Munro & the wonderful people at Auckland University Press. #pukapuka #bloomscolling #bloomsky

Plants have limited resources for #defense. @ethanbass.bsky.social explores a @plosbiology.org study revealing how #plants limit costs by deploying cheap traits immediately, delaying spending on costly ones until a critical damage threshold is reached. Paper: plos.io/45iSFUd Primer: plos.io/45kLk6C

After seeing your post I got some for myself!

Fuuuuuuuck oooooooff. Our government are determined to keep sucking up to the biggest bully on the playground. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Halfway through Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, by far the best of his novels so far (going in chrono. order). The chapters have so much more momentum than in prev. novels and the Water Party chapter was spectacular. Still, Lawrence's ranting through Birkin can be irritating but I'm used to it. 💙📚🇳🇿

good news drop www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Book mail! #dhlawrence

Interesting book I got from the opshop... love the front cover.

The New Zealand Police should never facilitate the entry of foreign police into New Zealand to intimidate critics and human rights advocates. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3606...

📢 Check out this recent publication in NZJE! Reproductive trait shift in Pinus contorta helps explain invasion success in Aotearoa New Zealand 🌲 Lead author: Tom Carlin, Scion newzealandecology.org/nzje/3584

I think it would be fair to suggest, at this stage, that NZ political media types are on board with smears against left wing MPs - they roundly joined the earlier attacks, and are more than happy to ignore the fact that clear dis/mis-info is being fed to them to platform.

I have a new article out on glyphosate resistant wild carrots. For those that are interested: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This is exactly what has already happened in New Zealand

Got some books today 📚🇳🇿

everything about this is so stupid. hackathon (stupid) web3 (dead and stupid) doge (nazi and stupid) callaghan (defunded and stupid). embarro tbh.

The different coloured seeds of Madagascar ragwort (Senecio madagascariensis). A major pastoral weed in Northland. The darker coloured and greenish seeds supposedly have some dormancy, whereas the light brown seeds can germinate immediately after coming off the plant.

Well the award for most cowardly, boot-lickingest academic society has squarely gone to the American Society of Microbiology, who has taken down features of various non-white scientists. Absolutely pathetic behavior. Those articles are now coming up as “under review”. Truly sickening cowardice here.

Did he though. Yes, his questions could have been better. But he exposed the theatre of the arrangement between journalists and politician. And Seymour had no comeback except namecalling and hasty retreat. Praising journalists for playing the game nicely is not perhaps the win Spinoff thinks #nzpol

It's really important this story is followed up. If the vaping industry is bribing our government as these staff said, we need to know who, and how. It's not just about the tobacco and vape industry, it's about preventing corruption. www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

Paywall now lifted: The Government has forced more legislation all the way through Parliament under urgency in its first 400 days than any since at least 1987. newsroom.co.nz/2025/01/28/g...

Saw these beauties nestled amongst the bamboo at the Botanical Gardens. They have such an Alice in Wonderland vibe!

Great to see this little pocket of life on busy Brougham St outside Prima Roastery in Ōtautahi. Nyctemera annulata - makokōrori or NZ magpie moth caterpillars feeding on a daisy relative. These weeds could easily have been sprayed or pulled. Nice to see what the alternative looks like. #nzgardening

Three spiked crowfoot grass. This thing is everywhere now! Originally only in Hawkes Bay but has appeared elsewhere. I first noticed it on the edge of a maize crop. Now Hamilton! And also in the South Island now too! I suspect spread by road works and from there on spread by other means...

Marsh woundwort (Stachys palustris) only found in the area between Taranaki (Patea)-Whanganui (Turakina River). This was growing in a maize crop!

Wow. Amazing find at a Tokoroa bookshop! #pukapuka #booksky

Sunflowers. They fell over in the wind so I had to string them to the fence. 🌻🌱🇳🇿

Mr Gus 🐱🇳🇿

It's the 1st of January, so I can start reading this book in 'real time!'

Some good finds today (especially the Keri Hulme!) #pukapuka

Nope-universities are not neutral. They're evidence-led. They stand for rigorous, evidenced claims, openness to scrutiny but consensus on facts. "Institutional neutrality" is a calling-card of rightwing orgs in the US, leading to policing classrooms & breaches of academic freedom. Don't fall for it

Best books I read this year - my favourite was Gentlemen of the West by Agnes Owens

#noballs #dropnuts Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will not attend Waitangi at all next year www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

The strategy is self-defeating & counter-productive. Ordering for more beatings until morale improves is not a viable policy, let alone a popular one. 2/2 thekaka.substack.com/p/blaming-tr...

jollymerry hollyberry jollyberry merryholly happyjolly jollyjelly jellybelly bellymerry hollyheppy jollyMolly marryJerry merryHarry hoppyBarry heppyJarry bobbyheppy berryjorry… —Edwin Morgan, “The Computer’s First Christmas Card” first published in THE SECOND LIFE, @edinburghup.bsky.social 1968

For fucks sake. The minister must resign.

today's cucumbers 🌱🇳🇿

Bring on more ignorance, says the govt. This is NOT leadership, its an appallingly reckless, reactionary move intended to stifle the work of scholars who question how society functions, looking for ways to make it better. #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...