Their precious haul was a collection of fossils of a plant known as Glossopteris, a species that lived about 300 million years ago. While southern beech, fossilized in lumps of coal, was not part of the collection on the sledge, its presence was recorded in Wilson’s diary. Similar fossils discovered since that expedition have been dated to be 5 to 7 million years old. The key point is this: Glossopteris is a tropical plant, and the southern beech is a temperate one. Neither species was ever thought to be polar. Wilson’s ancient plants lie about 100 miles from the South Pole—a place devoid of
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Edward Wilson, part of Robert Falcon Scott’s last expedition ending in all of them dying.
