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Forest Vines to Snow Tussocks: The Story of New Zealand Plants

Tertiary South America

page 245

Tertiary South America195,198

The general progression in South America seems to have been similar to that of Australia although arid climates, while strongly developed in places, did not become so widespread as in Australia.

In the Eocene, genera and families now largely restricted to tropical northern South America appeared in the fossil records of Chile and Argentina. This is comparable to the appearance of a tropical element in the southern Australian floras at about the same time. Similarly, with cooling from the Oligocene on, the tropical element disappeared from southern South America and southern rain forest groups — Podocar-paceae, Nothofagus, Proteaceae, Cunoniaceae — became increasingly important.