Remarks on the botany of the southern cold temperate zone

Abstract The plant life of the southern cold temperate zone differs widely from that of the northern cold temperate zone not only in its floristic composition but also in its physiognomic types of vegetation. The latter difference is partly due to the fact that the austral zone concerned is cold temperate in a sense rather different from the corresponding boreal zone. Contrary to the great continents dominating the boreal cold temperate zone, the austral cold temperate zone consists mostly of a great ocean containing only a narrow extension of the South American continent and various islands. Owing to this difference the climates of the austral cold temperate zone are generally much more oceanic than those of the boreal cold temperate zone. Nowhere in the boreal zone do we find a climate with such small