Floras of middle and upper pleistocene age from Brandon, Warwickshire

Abstract

Part I This flora is interpreted as representing a vegetation of meadow birch woodland influenced by local edaphic conditions of a base rich sandy alluvial environment. It includes important aquatic associations and pioneer associations on sand substrates of different moisture contents. A thermophilous component indicating July mean temperature up to 15 $^\circ$C is anomalous for this general vegetation type today and suggests that the vegetation was also influenced by the factor of delayed immigration of climax species. It is believed that this is due to the floras existence during an early interstadial of the Saalian, following the refrigeration which brought the Holstein to a close. Part II No pollen was obtained, but the plant macrofossils indicate a flora typical of the alluvial environment suggested by the sedimentary context. The vegetation was treeless and was sub-Arctic or even low-Arctic, though the occurrence of Groenlandia densa is anomalous. This plant occurs, however, at other mid-Weichselian sites, to which the Brandon flora shows general similarity.