A fascinating account of the ancestry of the Australian flora from its genesis to the present day, using evidence from the fossil record. When Australia broke away from the supercontinent of Gondwana, 50 million years ago, it already had an established flora, with rainforests covering much of the new continent. Today's remnant rainforests are ancestors of a unique flora that evolved in isolation as the continent moved northwards to its present position. Has appeared under the title The Flowering of Gondwana.