Future Research in the Southern Cold Temperate Zone

Irene Manton (Botany Department, University of Leeds) Having listened as an outsider to this whole array of very interesting papers I am struck by the absence at present of material from two major sources of evidence, both of which are I think essential for the ultimate purposes for which this symposium has been arranged. One of these is from pure geology in which evidence entirely independent of recent palaeobotany exists on essential matters such as the position of the pole at different epochs; without this knowledge the vegetational history of Antarctica itself is uninterpretable. The second immedi­ately available source of evidence is experimental taxonomy. Cyto-taxonomy, cytogenetics and comparative growth studies at suitable transplant stations would settle at once many detailed problems which can never be solved by purely herbarium studies and without which fundamental problems such as the age and possible sources of taxa will remain uncertain. This is probably the biggest single source of fundamentally new data not available in any form to Darwin and Hooker and it is greatly to be hoped that it will be developed imaginatively and on a sufficient scale. It could be applied to many groups of herbaceous plants both higher and lower and probably also to certain animal groups such as insects. A prerequisite is the systematic garnering of material in a form which can be grown, from every area to which collecting journeys are made. It is greatly to be hoped that this will be made a major objective in any further expeditions which will be planned.