Twenty-six samples from MSSTS-1 were processed for palynology. Recovery was poor, and most palynomorphs are considered to be recycled from older deposits. Dinoflagellate cysts are mainly of Eocene age, and belong to a high latitude suite recovered initially from erratic boulders at McMurdo Sound. Older palynomorphs mixed with the dinocysts include Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous spores and pollen, of unknown source, and Permian spores and pollen which are known to occur in upper Beacon Supergroup sediments in the Transantarctic Mountains. Tertiary pollen is rare and poorly diversified, consisting mainly of that of Nothofagus and Podocarpaceae. The sparseness of land-derived pollen from Late Oligocene to Early Miocene sediments at this near-shore site makes it unlikely that land areas in the vicinity bore much vegetation at this time. The demonstrated presence of only recycled palynomorphs in the Late Oligocene at MSSTS-1 increases the possibility that pollen and spores in coeval sediments at DSDP Site 270 are also recycled. Ice flow to the site in the Late Oligocene appears to have been largely from the Transantarctic Mountains to the west.