very different flora of that time.[1] This “polar” flora of that period is found on the southern continents, as a rule in beds which lie partly below, partly above the glacial deposits and thus play a similar rôle to that of the interglacial beds of the European glacial period. But, as is to be expected, this flora extends beyond the limits of the ice, for it is found in Kashmir and the Eastern Himalayas as well as in Indo-China and in Borneo.
Wood with annual rings, which probably corresponds to the boreal or “snow-forest” climate of Köppen, has to my knowledge only been found at two places for this period, namely, by Arber in Australia (New South Wales) and by Halle on the Falkland Islands.
Finally, coal measures are known from the south polar region of that time, again in close connection with the Glossopteris flora and mostly lying directly on the Permo-Carboniferous moraines. They are known from Argentina (Lower Carboniferous), South Africa, Deccan and Australia. We are obviously dealing with the sub-polar peat-bogs of that period, which correspond exactly to our Quaternary and post-Quaternary peat-bogs in Europe (as well as those in Tierra del Fuego).
But these occurrences of coal are relatively unimportant compared with the great girdle of productive coal measures which extends through North America, Europe and Asia (China). The plant remains pre-
- ↑ Thus nowadays a fern grows in Greenland at the edge of the ice. But the limit of tree-ferns is to-day 30° to 50° in the southern hemisphere. “The most southerly points where fern-trees occur are Tasmania and the South Island of New Zealand with Auckland. In South Brazil Dicksonia sellowiana and Alsophila procera extend to S. Paulo; in North Argentina to Misiones; in Cape Colony Hemitelia capensis is the last stage towards the south.” (Robert Potonié, Paläoklimatisches im Lichte der Paläobotanik, Naturw. Wochenschr., June 26, 1921, p. 383.)
