k 25 
The scanty flora of the Neocomian rocks of New Zealand naturally offers little 
material for comparison. Some of the plants appear to be similar to those found 
elsewhere in Jurassic rocks, such as Cladophlebis australis and Micro phyllopteris pectinata, 
while others, such as Cladophlebis Albertsi (?), Nageiopsis longifolia (?) (both doubtful 
determinations), with Tceniopteris arctica, appear to be essentially Cretaceous plants 
occurring in England, America, and Spitzbergen respectively. The real interest in 
this flora lies in the comparative poverty of Angiosperms as compared with members 
of the truly Mesophytic genera. No doubt it is one of the earliest Angiospermous 
floras yet discovered. 
The Neocomian flora of the Waikato Heads is also remarkable for the absence 
of many characteristic Wealden species, such as— 
Onychiopsis Mantelli (Brongn.), 
Weichselia Mantelli (Brongn.), 
Otozamites Klipsteini (Dunk.), 
Zamiophyllum Buchianum (Ett.), 
Nilssonia Schaumburgensis (Dunk.), 
some of which occur in the Uitenhage Series(l) of South Africa, a flora which, however, 
is somewhat unlike that occurring at Wa’ikato Heads. 
Among the broader conclusions we may, I think, hold that in Rhsetic and probably 
also in Jurassic times New Zealand and Tasmania were united with Australia as one 
large connected land area. The floras of these now separated regions are nearly allied, 
but not identical, yet the similarity between them is probably sufficiently close to 
allow of this hypothesis. If this is the ease the distribution of land in this quarter 
of the globe differed somewhat from that in Upper Palaeozoic times, when, as we have 
seen, New Zealand formed no part of Gondwanaland. 
As regards Antarctica, we have no evidence as yet of any Rhaetic flora there, but 
in Jurassic times Grahamland may have been connected with New Zealand and also 
with Australia. It has been pointed out here that the floras of these three regions 
are similar, though as a whole perhaps specifically distinct. On the other hand, there 
does not appear to be similar evidence that South Africa was then united either to 
Antarctica or to Australia, for no trace of a land vegetation of Jurassic age is known 
from the former continent. Rhsetic floras occur in South Africa, and are of a some¬ 
what similar type to those of Australia. Thus the continental conditions of Permo- 
Carboniferous times may have been maintained as late as the Rhaetic, but there is no 
evidence that in the direction of South Africa they were prolonged into the Jurassic 
period. 
On the whole, so far as the present evidence leads us to any conclusions, the 
Mesozoic land-connections between Antarctica and the temperate regions of the Southern 
Hemisphere appear to have been chiefly in the direction of New Zealand and Australia. 
As regards South America the evidence at present is less certain. Wealden floras 
occur in Patagonia(2) and Peru(3), as in New Zealand and South Africa(4), but the 
plants so far recorded from these countries are somewhat dissimilar, and our know¬ 
ledge of these floras is not sufficiently extensive to permit us to form any estimate 
as to how far these areas may or may not have been continuous or connected 
in Wealden times. From the Antarctic continent, so far as the Mesophytic floras are 
concerned, we have as yet no data relating to terrestrial plant-life, except in Jurassic 
times. 
(1) Seward (1903, 1907). (4) So far as I am aware we have at present 
(2) Halle (1913 1 2 3 ). no clear evidence of a Neocomian flora 
(3) Zeiller (1914). from Australia. 
