Glossopteris sp.

The tongue-shaped leaf of Glossopteris, the seed fern that dominated the southern continents through the Permian. The leaf has a strong midrib and a distinctive net of connecting veins between the midrib and the margin.

Glossopteris trees grew in cool, wet, seasonal conditions at high southern latitude and shed their leaves each year. The leaf litter that accumulated in the swamps became the Illawarra Coal Measures — the coal seams of the Illawarra are, in effect, compressed Glossopteris forest floor.

The plant's distribution across South America, Africa, India, Antarctica and Australia — continents now separated by oceans — was among the earliest and strongest evidence for the former existence of Gondwana, and helped establish continental drift. Glossopteris leaves were among the fossils found with Scott's party in Antarctica in 1912.