Category Plants & Animals

Where you can find the corkoak tree?

Cork, a material used mainly for bottle-stoppers, insulation and floor coverings, is produced from a special type of evergreen oak tree which grows, sometimes wild, in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean.

The cork-oak has a thick, dark foliage, formed from noded branches, covered with tough, oval leaves which are small and slightly jagged.

Its thick tall trunk is completely wrapped in an outer bark of cork which is covered with find brown grooves. The tree is first tripped of its cork, which will be rather hard and knobby, when it is about sixteen years old. It is then stripped again every nine to ten years, depending on its location, and each time it will produce a good, light cork just over three centimeters thick.

After about 150 years, these trees cease to produce good quality cork and they are then felled.

 

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How you can find the land of the sunflower?

Sunflower with their round golden heads are grown in gardens where their beauty can be admired, and in field where they are planted for their seeds.

In Europe the largest habitat of the sunflower is in the Ukraine, where the black soil is rich in nutritive substances which are ideal for this type of cultivation.

Immense expanses of golden head, whose diameters sometimes reach 30 centimetres, and of stalks growing to a height of 4 metres, cover kilometre after kilometre of fertile plain, providing a spectacle which is at once vivid and imposing.

A native of North America, the sunflower leaves can be used as fodder for animals, the flowers provide a yellow dye and oil suitable for industrial use and for foodstuffs is extracted from its seeds. It is no coincidence and other oil producing plants are scarce.

 

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How to look after goldfish?

Goldfish make extremely popular pets. They are not difficult to look after providing you follow a few simple rules.

The first serious threat to a goldfish is when it is taken home from the pet shop. It should be swimming around in quite a lot of water and you should not take it in one of those small plastic bags. If you must use a plastic bag take the goldfish out of it as soon as possible or it may suffocate.

A second danger to goldfish is the tank it swims in. Tap-water contains chlorine which is poisonous to goldfish. This water is also too cold and might kill the pet.

A third danger is feeding which is all too often wrong for goldfish. These fish do not require much food, but what they do eat must be carefully chosen. Never give goldfish breadcrumbs: use the special food sold in shops but be careful to give it only in small quantities. Occasionally you can give goldfish a small amount of finely minced raw meat or the crushed yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

The larger the tank the happier the fish will be. The ideal tank is the aquarium but a large bowl will serve. Do not forget that even a goldfish can become bored and pine away living alone, so you should give it a companion, either male or female. Goldfish were originally natives of eastern Asia but were later introduced into China, Japan, Europe and the United States. They have been known to live for twenty-five years in captivity, but the average life span is usually much shorter.

 

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What happens when dogs shed their fur?

It is always an awkward time for dogs when they shed their fur. At such a time they should be treated gently and taken for long walks in the fresh air so that they can roll about in the grass and get rid of their loose hair. The dog should also be groomed with a metal comb so that it won’t have to scratch itself too much, and brushed to remove loose hair and burrs. Short-haired breeds require little grooming but the longer the dog’s hair the more it has to be combed. Some breeds have to be clipped regularly to maintain their health and good appearance.

The moulting period, when dogs shed their old hair, usually lasts about two weeks. During this period the dog should be given fatty foods containing butter, cooking fat or bacon fat. An average-sized dog can eat between hundred and 150 grammes of fat a day without being harmed but a safe fat limit is about 15 per cent of the dog’s total daily food intake.

 

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Why the Indians use Llamas?

The typical beast of burden in the Andes region of South America is the llama. These animals are mostly bred by the Indians for their milk and their thick wool. Usually white, the animals can vary in colour to solid black, with any combination of brown or black spots.

The llama is a stolid and tough animal, able to endure thirst and to exist on a wide variety of vegetation. It is often used to carry loads up steep mountain paths and in places where there are no roads, travelling slowly but safely even in the most difficult and dangerous places. It can carry a load of about 60 kilogrammes for about five days on end without resting. When overloaded or exhausted, however, it lies down, hisses, spits and kicks, refusing to move until relieved of some weight or adequately rested. Only the male llamas are used as beasts of burden. The females are kept in the grazing grounds, and although they do not yield very much milk the Indians put it to a number of uses.

 

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Describe the way bamboo wood is used?

In the countries where bamboo grows this wood is used in an incredible number of ways as it is cheap and plentiful. Bamboo stems are used to build bridges, houses, boats, irrigation pipes and receptacies of all kinds. One of the best known uses of bamboo in its flexible state is in fishing rods.  This wood is also used to make garden furniture because it is light and strong and stands up to the weather. The shoots of the bamboo are also delicious to eat.
Bamboo belongs to the graminaceous family of plants, which means it is a sort of glass. It has a rhizome, or root part, which grows from year to year and produces new stalks. Sometimes these stalks are enormous, growing to more than 30 metres high.

The stalks are hollow and jointed, with knots from which branches grow. These branches become covered in leaves and the bamboo resembles a tree. Most bamboos flower very rarely and are thornless, but a few kinds have sharp spines.

 

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