The wedding pickup, owned by Mr. Pattershall's stepfather, Milo Matrazzo, is typical of the vehicles that wheeze and clank around these islands, adding a faint smear of grease to postcard scenes of sea, forest and cottage.
This situation was mostly explained by the vector Anopheles dirus, an extremely efficient species for malaria transmission, present in the SEA forest zones and characterized by early biting, exophagy and exophily.
Release a pigeon thousands of kilometers from home, and it'll fly across seas, forests, or deserts to return.
Much larger algae, commonly known as seaweeds, are important locally; Sargassum forms floating drifts, while kelp form seabed forests.
Describing an amphibious tree that nurtures aquatic life in its wet roots, Byatt almost makes you feel seasick: "Things swayed, and slid, and sailed through the sea-forest, hunting and hunted", while "pallid prawns flicker glassy feelers".
The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields surrounding Seattle were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies.
Strong north-westerly winds, coming off the Tasman sea, reduce forest stature in parts of the Tararua Range and other coastal forests (PJ Bellingham, pers. comm., (Zotov et al. 1938)).
After years of internecine war, communities are "islands in a sea of forest".
The cuisine also reflects the region's geography of mountains, sea and forest.
