The New Zealand Flora-Entirely Long-Distance Dispersal?

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Abstract
The present New Zealand flora is popularly seen as a living example of 'Gondwanan' vegetation isolated by sea-floor spreading in the Late Cretaceous. However, living plants on purely oceanic islands give clear evidence of many New Zealand genera which could have arrived this way. The geology of Norfolk, Lord Howe, Fiji and the Kermadec Islands is reviewed. They are shown to be oceanic, and their flora therefore dispersed. A good palynological record indicates that almost all of New Zealand's flora can be seen to have arrived 'post-drift'. macrofossil record supports this showing complete change since the Late Cretaceous. Throughout be Tertiary New Zealand's flora had an 'Australian' character-the character of the present evergreen forests of New Zealand probably does not predate the late Tertiary or early Pleistocene times. The present New Zealand vegetation can not be called 'Gondwanic', either in character or in the sense that it has evolved in isolation, directly from Gondwana-period lineages. It is probable that the entire forest-flora of New Zealand arrived by long-distance dispersal.

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