Gondwana Relic Return To SciArt Ezine

The dominant botanical illustration in this work is of the Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) by Gillian Scott. The Araucaria family formed the dominant tree vegetation in the late Cretaceous period. Behind Gillian’s work is a map which highlights the current locations of Antarctic Beech (Nothofagus) in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Nothofagus was once wide spread throughout eastern Australia. It is believed that it once grew on the Main Range. It is still present on the Lamington Plateau. The faint silhouette behind much of this work is a canopy shot from a Nothofagus dominant forest. The bottom left corner displays a fossilized pollen spore of Nothofagus. Above this is a map displaying the opening of new seaways around Antarctica in a series of maps. Above this is a series of overlapping maps displaying the retreat of rainforest in this country as Australia drifted north. The far left image visually presents the notion of life as liquid flowing through space-time. As genes flow through the protoplasm of attached bodies in space-time, life evolves like water finding the path of least resistance in the matrix. These pathways are the dendroids. Without them we would not be. The image in the top right corner was taken from the eastern side of Cunningham’s Gap. Throughout the work are drawings from the Boyce Gardens.