348 E. A. Newell Arber — The Glossopteris Flora. 



validiim, Feist, in India and South America, and Sphenopteris poly- 

 morpha, Feist, in India and Australia.' 



For many years the Glossopteris flora was regarded both as 

 confined to Gondwaua-land, and as entifely distinct in type from 

 that of northern latitudes. It has, however, become more and more 

 clear that neither of these assumptions is correct PJiyllotheca 

 deliquescens (Gopp.), of the Permian of Eussia, also occurs in 

 Australia, where it was first described by McCoy in 1847, under 

 the name of P. HooJceri.- In 1898 Amalitsky ^ recorded Glossopteris 

 itself from the Upper Permian of Kussia, and more recently the 

 Noeggerathiopsis Gopperti (Schm.) of Russia was shown to be 

 identical with an Australian fossil plant.* These facts would seem 

 to point to the conclusion that a migration into Europe of the 

 southern type of flora took place towards the close of the Permo- 

 Carboniferous period ; a theory which is supported by the occurrence 

 of a Schizoneura of very similar characters to the Indian form ^ in 

 the Bunter of the Vosges, and of PJiyllotheca in the Lower Oolites 

 of Italy. In fact all the four main types of the flora of Gondwana- 

 land are known to have been present in Europe in either Permian 

 or Lower Mesozoic times. 



But perhaps the most interesting result arising from recent 

 researches is the fact that the Permo-Carboniferous flora of the 

 Southern Hemisphere can no longer be regarded as entirely distinct 

 in type from that of Europe and North America. This flora is now 

 known to have been composed of a mixture of both southern and 

 northern types in at least two of the four great districts composing 

 Gondwana-land. Such association has been completely demonstrated 

 in South America,*' and South Africa,^ and there is reason to believe 

 that it is not altogether wanting in Southern India.^ We may there- 

 fore conclude that land connections existed in Permo-Carboniferous 

 times between the northern and southern continents. In Africa, we 

 can clearly trace such connections, for Potonie^ has shown that 

 Glossopteris occurs in German and Portuguese East Africa, and 

 Zeiller '^ has described typical European Coal-measure species from 

 the Tete Coal Basin of the Zambesi region. Further south still, in 

 the neighbourhood of Johannesburg, an association of both these 

 types occurs." 



It is a point worthy of special attention that Australia, so far, 

 remains an exception, in that no trace of any such association 

 of typical members of the Glossopteris flora with northern types 



1 Arber: Q.J.G.S., 1902, vol. Iviii, p. 12. 



2 Arber : ibid., p. 17. 



3 AmaKtsky: Trav. Soc. nat. St. Petersbourg, 1898, vol. xxviii. Zeiller: Bull. 

 Soc. Bot. Fr., 1899, vol. xlv, p. 392. 



* Arber: ibid., p. 17. 



5 Seward : Fossil Plants, vol. i, p. 293. 



« Zeiller: Bull. Soc. geol. France, 1895, ser. in, vol. xxiii, p. 601. 



^ Seward: Q.J.G.S., 1897, vol. liii, p. 315. 



8 Arber : Geol. Mag., 1901, Dec. IV, Vol. VIII, p. 546. 



5 Potonie : Sitz. Gesell. naturf. Freunde, Berlin, 1899, p. 27. 

 1" Zeiller : Ann. Mines (8), Mem., 1883, vol. iv, p. 594. 

 ^' Seward: ibid. 



