The Arboreal Component of The Neogene Forest Bed, West Point Island, Falkland Islands

Abstract

In 1907 Halle (1911) collected a diverse wood assemblage from the organic clays and lignites of the Forest Bed on West Point Island. This wood assemblage provides a reliable basis for determining the local arboreal component of the vegetation comprising the Forest Bed community. Five wood types have been recognised from Halle's collection as belonging to the Cupressaceae and Podocarpaceae. A reinvestigation of the only dicotyledonous angiosperm wood collected from this bed found that it resembled most closely Weinmannia L. of the Cunoniaceae. Together these remains represent an increased diversity of wood types derived from the arboreal component of thc vegetation, relative to previous studies. Gymnosperms are likely to have comprised the overstorey with angiosperms forming a closed canopy, interpreted as a broadleaf-gymnosperm temperate-type rainforest. The results agree with arecent palynological study of the same deposits, which concluded that the vegetative composition of the Forest Bed is a unique variant of the continuum of the Nothofagus Blume-Podocarpaceae rainforests that existed on middlehigh latitude landmasses across the Southern Hemisphere during the Late Tertiary.