LETTER FROM HAMBURG: AIZOACEAE AT WIDTH from Heidi Hartmann

摘要

2006 ended for Wilfried and me with a lovely trip to the United Arab Emirates, where I was invited to give a lecture at the University of Al Ain, at a ladies' college. To be surrounded by hundreds of ladies in black was an experience of its own, but the talk I gave found much interest and response. Not many Aizoaceae occur in the area, probably because it lies at the border of the winter rainfall region, but some are planted or occur in what is called "arid regions" there. Field work, however, is noteasy to undertake, partly due to the extensive building activities of which you will have seen pictures and read articles. Colleagues from the university helped me to find Aizoon canariense, already in fruit on a calcareous bank above the most northernmangroves, a highly disturbed and open locality next to an area like an unused road on which fish were dried in the open and filled into bags; the contents we detected later in a garden centre as shredded material bagged to be used as fertilizer.