New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Comment
Nothofagus fossils in Antarctica

PETER WARDLE

Landcare Research
P.O. Box 69
Lincoln, New Zealand

In our paper comparing the flora and vegetation of the southern Andes and New Zealand (Wardle et al. 2001), we drew attention to fossils of Nothofagus in Antarctica that, according to Webb & Harwood (1993), date from only three million years ago. We suggested that, if this is correct, Antarctica may have had a role in the dispersal of plants to Australasia and South America until the late Tertiary, citing Hectorella as a possible example. In doing so, we had overlooked that this had already been suggested by Mark & Adams (1995, p. 14). Moreover, the Pliocene age assigned to the Sirius Group that contains the Nothofagus fossils is contested, for instance, by Stroeven & Kleman (1999), who argue for an age of at least mid Miocene. This would not necessarily rule out a late Tertiary role for Antarctica in the dispersal of some austral herbaceous genera, but would make the Sirius Group Nothofagus fossils less relevant.

New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2001, Vol. 39: 631

0028-825X/01/3904-0631 $7.00 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 2001

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality; (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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