33 
The Glossopteris Flora. 
example of the filling-tissue described by Count Solms. A com¬ 
parison of the figures given by Schuster with those in Solms’ 
paper leaves no doubt as to the correctness of this conclusion. 
A.C.S. 
The Glossopteris Flora. 
“ On the Geological Structure and History of the Falkland Islands.” By 
T. G. Halle. (Reprinted from the Bull. Geol. Instit. Univ. Upsala, Vol. XI., p. 
115, 1911). ” Les phenomenes glaciaires de l’epoque Permo-Carbonifere : 
indications climateriques fournies par le flore.” By P. Bertrand. (Aim. soc. 
geol. du Nord, Vol. XXXVIII., p. 92, Lille, 1909). 
Although the title of Dr. Halle’s memoir does not afford any 
indication of the fact, some of his results are of considerable 
botanical interest. He describes certain fossil plants which 
demonstrate the existence of the Glossopteris flora in the Falkland 
Islands, and in association with the plant-beds he discovered rocks 
of undoubted glacial origin. The term Glossopteris flora, first used 
by Neumayr in 1887, is applied to an assemblage of Palaeozoic 
plants from India and the southern hemisphere characterised by a 
comparatively small number of species, by a wide geographical 
distribution, and by a general uniformity of facies. Our knowledge 
of the nature of the individual members of the flora is very meagre 
as it is based almost entirely on casts and impressions of leaves and 
stems, but from the point of view of distribution and climatic 
conditions the flora presents many features of interest. During the 
Permo-Carboniferous era the vegetation in Europe, parts of Asia, 
and the southern hemisphere was of a uniform type and included 
such genera as are familiar to students of the Coal-Measures flora 
of Britain. The comparatively small number of species obtained 
from the Permo-Carboniferous rocks in India, South Africa, South 
America, and Australia point to the existence of a flora characterised 
by the predominance of Glossopteris and Gangamopteris (usually 
spoken of as Ferns but probably Pteridosperms) with some other 
genera unrepresented in the northern flora and differing in the 
absence or rarity of many plants which form a characteristic feature 
in the Coal Measures of Europe and North America. The Glosso¬ 
pteris beds in India are spoken of by Geologists as Lower Gond- 
w r ana, and Professor Suess instituted the name “ Gondwana Land ” 
for a former Southern Continent, now represented by S. Africa, S. 
America, Australia, and India, in which the Glossopteris flora 
flourished. The occurrence of ice-formed rocks in close association 
with the Glossopteris beds is frequently brought forward as evidence 
of different climatic conditions in the two Permo-Carboniferous 
botanical provinces and it is generally believed that the contrast 
between the floras is in large measure the expression of different 
climates. It is with questions relating to climate that M. Bertrand’s 
paper is chiefly concerned. 1 
In his introduction to the account of the Falkland islands, Dr. 
1 The distribution and the composition of the Glossopteris flora are 
fully dealt with by Mr. Arber in his valuable Monograph 
issued by the Trustees of the British Museum [Catalogue of 
the Fossil Plants of the Glossopteris Flora in the Department 
of Geology, British Museum (Natural History), 1905.] The 
subject was treated in less detail by the present reviewer in the 
Presidential Address to the botanical section of the British 
Association Meeting at Stockport in 1903. See also E. Kolcen, 
Indisches Perm und die permische Eiszeit. Neues Jahrb. 
fiir Mineralogie, Festband, 1906, p. 446, 
