fulltext - DiVA

PToblems of BipolaT Plant DistTibution 229Arten erzeugten, gaben auch in Australien den . gleichen Arten ihr jetziges Dasein>>(L c., p. 318).ETTINGSHAUSEN's, as well as other contemporaneous paleobotanists', identificationsof European fossils with Australian genera were met with opposition bymany taxonomists, biogeographers and paleobotanists (cf. BENTHAM 1870, ENG­LER 1882, DRUDE 1887, SAPORTA 1889, SCHENK 1890, etc.) and i t soon became thefashion. in wide botanical circles to 1eave them entirely out of serious consideration.WALLACE, however, pointed out >>the improbability that the numerous resemblancesto Australian plants which have been noticed by different observers shouldall be illusory; while the well establishcd fact of the former wide distribution ofmany tropical or now restricted types of plants and animals, so frequently illustratedin the present volume\ removes the antecedent improbability which issupposed to attach to such identifications>>. And he added: >>I am royself the moreinclined to accept them, because, according to the views here advocated, suchmigrations must have taken place at remote as well as at recent epochs; and thepreservation of some of these types in Australia while they have become extinctin Europe, is exactly paralleled by numerous facts in the distribution of animalswhich have been already referred to in Ohapter XIX, and elsewhere in this volume,and also repeatedly in my larger work.>> (WALLACE 1880, pp. 486-487.) ENGLER(1882), though doubting ETTINGSHAUSEN's identifications, emphasized that knownphytogeographic facts did not exclude the possibility of the existence of PToteacece,OasuaTina and other now Australian plants in Europe during the Eocene period,and pointed out the undoubted occurrence of ATaucaTia in English Eocenedeposits. And even if the identifications in question were partly wrong (as so1nany other identifications of poorly conserved fossil plants), other parts havebeen confirmed by more recent pa1eobotanical research. Anyhow, the occurrenceof Etwalyptus and PToteaceae in the Oretaceous and early Tertiary vegetation ofthe northern hemisphere is now rather generally admitted (cf. BERRY 1914 and1916, REID 1915, IRMSCHER 19221 VELENOVSKY and VINIKL.ÅR 1926-27, VINIKL.ÅR1931, SEWARD 1931, BIRMER 1935, SCHRÖTER 1935, NORDHAGEN 1937, BALLE1940, etc.).It seems then only fair to admit that also ETTINGSHAUSEN's conclusions maybe worthy of a somewhat more serious consideration than is generally believed.This has in fact been pointed out by IRMSCHER (1922, p. 200): >>Es ist wohl uberf1ussig,alle die mehrfach genannten Belege wieder vorzubringen, die nun alle nachder Auffassung drängen, dass einst eine viel einheitlicher zusammengesetzteFlora die durch Nordamerika, Europa und Asien im obigenSinne verlaufende warme und auch gemässigte Zone besie delt habenm u ss, als sie heute die en tsprechenden Zonen aufweisen. Wirsind uns ubrigens bewusst, darnit keinen völlig neuen Gedanken auszusprechen,da eine ähnliche Auffassung schon von älteren Autoren wie v. ETTINGSHAUSENvertreten worden . ist.>>1 = WALLACE's >>Island Life (1880).