Gondwanan Plants What Are They and Why Grow Them in Britain?
Gondwana is the term applied to a super-continent the ocupied the southern hemisphere until around 90 million years ago when it began to break up and the constituents parts drift across the surface of the globe or disappear beneath the Oceans. If we look at South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Australia and New Guinea, New Caledonia, New Zealand and Antarctica on a globe one can imagine that with a bit of shugguling they could be made to all slot together quite nicely. They were and as such formed Gondwana. Not long before its break up Flowering plants arrived on the scene and quickly spread and proliferated over this vast landmass. On its break-up each part took representatives of the flora of the whole with it, some parts have lost all or much of this original flora now. The frozen wastes of Antarctica or the Indian flora that has lost much of the Gondwanan element due to competition of Asian invaders after it's turbulent passage up through the tropics will attest to this. Most still retain the distinct indicators of their origins, presence of certain plant (Myrtaceae, Proteaceae, Rutaceae, the Southern Beeches, etc.) and animal families (Marsupials, flightless birds, etc.) in large numbers show this.
In short Gondwanan plants is taken as a blanket term for plants originating in the Southern Hemisphere from the regions which were once part of Gondwana, it is also usually taken to refer to plants with their origins in this flora.
So why bother growing plants from the other end of the world?
Well apart from having many of the most beautiful plants in existence, anyone who wishes to argue should look at the King Protea (Protea cynaroides), they have plants adapted to every situation imaginable. Their great appeal to us and to others on the maritime west coast of the British Isles and France is the great number of plants which are especially well adapted to thriving in the exposed and often very wet coastal situations. Without them gardens here would be much the poorer. Many will make the case for the use of natives but for many this simply is not practical. Where we are in the Northwest Highlands there are hardly any native shrubs more than a foot tall, none other than gorse and holly that are evergreen and neither make very good or decorative hedges in exposed sites. The Scottish flora was not fully re-established before the English Channel re-opened after the last Ice age, consequently we are left with a largely boreal flora which is staggering in it's lack of diversity of higher plants with endemism virtually unheard of and specialization rare. The plants of some areas of Gondwana as it is today do face very similar condition to ours and as such vegetation often takes on a similar overall look so that with consideration plants from these regions can be used here and are sympathetic to their surroundings.
This was a general introduction to Gondwanan plants, I have written a longer piece for those of you who have had your appetites wetted.
Ben Rushbrooke April 2004
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