Fossil Leaves | Glossopteris browniana | Australia

Plate approx. size: 11" x 6.25" x 1.25"

Glossopteris is the largest and best known genus of the order Glossopteridales, an extinct order of seed plants that arose at the beginning of the Permian. The leaves of Glossopteris are named for their distinctive tongue shape. Species of Glossopteris were the dominant trees of the middle to high latitude areas across the supercontinent Gondwana during the Permian. Glossopteris fossils are significant to geological history as they provided the first evidence of continental drift. The distribution of Glossopteris leaves found in rocks across South America, Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica lead geologists to conclude that these continents had once been connected.