Overview
Te Papa holds around 50 specimens of fossil plants collected from the Wairaki Mine, Ohai, Southland. These were collected by Mr Horace Fyfe in the 1930s. They haven't been described or identified yet but the estimated age is 84 to 66 million years old (Morley coal measures, Cretaceous, Haumurian) or 42.6 to 34.6 million years old (Beaumont formation, Eocene, Bortonian-Runangan). The fossil leaves were collected near the boundary between these two adjacent formations separated by an age gap (unconformity).
The fossils have been imaged and can be seen below.