Watch out for this pretty flower
Green thumbs are being asked to watch out for a beautiful but toxic flower that could be growing in their backyards.
What you need to know:
- Every part of the plant is poisonous, and can cause gastroenteritis, thirst, paralysis, blindness, and heart and kidney failure.
- This plant is hardy and normal pest control efforts are often not enough to eradicate.
- The cape tulip, growing up to 90cm high with one strap-like leaf, was introduced to Aotearoa in the 1940s, the Ministry for Primary Industries’ manager for pest management John Sanson said. “Cape tulips, like many of these invasive weeds, are really attractive ornamental species ...but they escape over people’s backyard fences and into pasture, as these things often do,”
- It was classified as a noxious plant in the late 1970s after they were discovered to cause harm to livestock and humans, even killing animals when too much as ingested.
- The salmon-pink flowers bloom for about two days a year between June and December, and have previously been an ornamental species for keen gardeners.
Sanson urged people who believed they had the weed growing on their property to leave it untouched and contact Biosecurity New New Zealand’s Exotic Pest and Disease on 0800 80 99 66.
Once a site was confirmed, manual removal or chemical treatment would start.
New Year, Same Brain Teasers!
A man was found dead with a cassette recorder in one hand and a gun in the other.
When the police pressed “play,” the tape said, “I can’t go on,” and then there was a gunshot.
Yet, the police knew it was a murder.
How?
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WETA COULD BE BETTA
After having written in Social Media about this place as a must visit tourist attraction within the Wellington region, I visited the Weta Workshops for a guided tour today.
And unfortunately my verdict is that Weta Workshops is an ok thing for tourists but nothing more.
I suppose it depends on what one might have expected beforehand. The tour guide named Logan was himself an actor and film production teamster and without doubt a highlight of the tour with his insight to all the movies etc Weta has been asked to "prop up".
The tour is overly expensive for admission and if the screen photo went with the admission price, it would have been somewhat more value for money instead of the $20 per photo asked for.
Maybe the best things I saw were being a mere few centimetres away from one of the actual Oscars and Baftas award trophies that Richard Taylor and his team have won.
So now Wellington has really just four things to boast about to tourists - Brewtown, Zealandia, Te Papa and The Beehive.