646 president's address. 



isolated by a wide sea, probably an ocean, from the land that 

 occupied in Carboniferous and Permian days so wide an area in 

 the northern hemisphere. The importance of the new discovery 

 is the immense extension that is given to Gondwana land and the 

 proof it affords that the region with its flora extended to the 

 western hemisphere and included a part at all events of South 

 America. This appears to indicate that a considerable area now 

 occupied by ocean in the southern hemisphere was land in the 

 Carboniferous period. Further research is needed to show whether 

 the various tracts of Gondwana land were connected by a South 

 Polar land area." 



A region like the above if of long continuance would form a 

 favourable centre of development for the higher forms of vegeta- 

 tion. We have already indications that Dicotyledons existed in 

 the southern hemisphere at an earlier age than in the northern. 

 Is it not therefore possible that the Proteacem^ at least, which, as 

 Bentham has shown, represent — especially the Tribe Nucamen- 

 tacece — a very ancient type, may have here originated 1 While 

 the connection of this land with South Africa and Australia 

 continued, opportunity would be afforded for the colonisation by 

 Proteacec^, of both countries, and the subsequent subsidence of the 

 connecting links would result in the present separation into two 

 divisions of one group of plants. The close alliance of other 

 groups of phanerogams in South Africa and Australia has been 

 already referred to, and there are not wanting botanists who 

 consider that it was in the southern hemisphere that the evolu- 

 tion of the higher orders of plants commenced. 



The Conifer ce are a very ancient group, and they do not appear 

 to furnish reliable data from which the distribution of land and 

 water in past ages can be deduced. ConifercE make their 

 appearance in Carboniferous times both in the northern and 

 southern hemispheres. Araucaria comes into view in the Jurassic 

 Period in the northern hemisphere. The genus is a remarkable 

 instance of persistence of type, a character which also applies to 

 the species. In China remains closely allied to our Araucaria 

 Cnn7ii7iyhamii have been found, and in the Bagshot Sands at 



