Plant: Cephalotus follicularis
(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)
Description: Very little is known about prehistoric Antarctica: with 98 percent of the continent covered with kilometers-thick ice, the few fossil beds accessible at the surface illuminate life there approximately 150 million years ago (including the discovery of the early theropod dinosaur Cryolophosaurus), approximately 65 million years ago, and the period surrounding the continent’s freeze 5 million years ago. Coal deposits and pollen samples from coring rigs are the main views of Antarctic plant life, as well as the inference from DNA analysis of the relationship between sundews from West Australia and Tierra del Fuego. It’s very possible that Antarctica had a wide and diverse population of carnivorous plants through its pre-freeze history, including relations to the Australian pitcher plant Cephalotus, but between the inaccessibility of most of its fossil-bearing strata and the poor fossilization record of carnivorous plants elsewhere, any discussion of Antarctic palaeofauna, especially of the period immediately after the extinction of the dinosaurs, is understandably speculative.
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