140 CARL SKOTTSBERG 



flora that has spread in various directions, helped by land con- 

 nections. He is especially struck with the discovery of fossil 

 plants in Graham Land. 



I shall now say a few words on the significance of this inter- 

 esting event. 3 As is well known, fragments of fossil wood have 

 been obtained also in Victoria Land. In Hope Bay, Louis 

 Philippe Peninsula (Graham Land) a rich Jurassic flora of ferns 

 and conifers, among them an Araucariles, was found by Prof. 

 J. G. Andersson. There is also one Cretaceous plant reported 

 from the same locality, probably a Sequoia. The fossil wood of 

 Seymour arid Snow Hill Islands, collected by the members of the 

 same expedition, especially by Andersson and O. Nordenskjold, 

 includes Podocarpoxylon, Laurinoxylon and Nolhofagoxylon, be- 

 longing to the Upper Cretaceous or more probably to the Ter- 

 tiary, and one Phyllocladoxylon and one Dadoxylon (Araucaria) 

 which are known to be Tertiary. Dusen judges the stratum con- 

 taining the fossil leaves to be of Oligocene age. The reader 

 gets the impression that the determination of several species is 

 very doubtful, and I shall only mention those in which there 

 can not be much question about the identification: Miconii- 

 phyllum australe Dus. (at least a Melastomacea!), Laurelia 

 insularis Dus., Drimys anlarctica Dus., Lomatia angusliloba Dus., 

 L. brevipinna Dus., L. serrulala Dus., L. seymourensis Dus., 

 Knightia Andreae Dus., Fagus Dicksonii Dus., F. obscura Dus. 

 (if really Fagus and not Noihofagus), Nothofagus magellanica 

 Engelh., N. pulchra Dus., Araucaria imponens Dus., and some 

 ferns. With the single exception of Miconiiphyllum all are of 

 profound interest for the question dealt with in this paper. 

 Dusen denies that the Seymour flora shows any relation to New 

 Zealand, and points out that Knightia Andreae, which he com- 

 pares with Knightia excelsa R. Br., is the only hint at an affinity 

 with Australia, although this plant is not a member of the Aus- 

 tralian flora but endemic in New Zealand. Phyllocladoxylon 



3 Dusen, P., tJber die tertiiire Flora der Seymour-Insel. Wiss. Ergebn. d. 

 Schwed. Sudpolarexped., iii, 3, 1908; Gothan, W., Die Fossilen Holzer der Sey- 

 mour und Snow Hill Inseln. Ibid., iii, 8, 1908; Halle, J. G., The Mesozoic Flora 

 of Graham Land. Ibid., iii, 14, 1913. 



