HARD WICKE 'S SCIENCE - G OS SIP. 



269 



rare ; it is the leaf of Traveller's Joy, or Clematis 

 vitalba. Not unfrequently in some species the margin 



Fig. 200. Floral Prolification in Cowslip. 



is joined the whole length, thus making a perfect 

 pitcher-shaped leaf. It haj^pens often on the lime- 



Fig. 201. Prolification of /'(r/rt/^T""'""'- 



tree [Tilia). It is reported a tree of this kind is 

 growing in the cemetery of a Cistercian monastery at 

 Sedlitz, on which certain monks were once hanged ; 

 hence the legend has arisen that the peculiar form of 

 the leaf was given in order to perpetuate the memory 

 of the martyred monks. — yaincs F. Robinson, Frod- 

 sham. 



Gigantic Dinosauria. — rrof. Mudge has an- 

 nounced his discovery, during the past summer, of 

 a new species of gigantic Dinosauria, in Colorado. 



A FOSSIL FUNGUS. 



THE potato disease is no new thing ; for Mr. 

 Worthington Smith has discovered a fossil spe- 

 cies belonging to this genus, which was found rami- 

 fying through the vascular structure of a Lepidoden 

 dron, one of the huge club-mosses of the Carboniferous 

 epoch. Mr. Carruthers, of the British Museum, first 

 noticed the fungus in a slide prepared to show the 

 vascular structure of the axis of Lcpidodcndron. Mr. 

 Smith has now discovered another specimen. The 

 first contained both the mycelium and oogonia of the 

 fungus, which he has named Pcronosporites antiqna- 

 riiis. He believes that both the specimens belong to 

 the same species. This is perhaps the oldest fungus 

 on record. Mr. Carruthers had previously recognized 

 the mycelial threads of a fossil species in the cells of 

 a fossil fern found in the Eocene beds of Heme Bay; 

 and this comparatively late form was also ascribed to 

 the genus Peronospora. The well-known botanist, 

 Robert Brown, also discovered the mycelia of a fossil 

 fungus many years ago. 



Mr. Smith read a paper on this remarkable car- 

 boniferous fungus at the Woolhope Club early in 

 October, which paper was printed at length in the 

 Gardenei's Chronicle shortly afterwards. He there 

 stated, — " I believe that the fungus I have named 

 Peronosporites antiquariiis, in the scalariform axis of 

 the stem of a Lepidodendron from the Coal Measures, 

 has up to the present time only been examined in a 

 somewhat slight manner, and has never been search- 

 ingly looked into. No description, except that of a 

 Mucor, also from the Coal Measures, has hitherto 

 been published of any well-defined fungus belonging 

 to the Palaeozoic series of rocks. It is, however, 

 possible that a paper in the Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History, 4th series, vol. iv. 1869, p. 221, 

 and tabb. ix. and x., describes and illustrates a fungus 

 of a somewhat similar nature with my Peronosporites. 

 The paper in question is communicated by Messrs. 

 Albany Hancock, F.L.S., and Thos. Atthey, and 

 purports to describe five species of ' Archagaricon ' 

 from the Cramlington black shale. The authors state 

 that the fossil fungus has been found at Newsham and 

 in other localities. They, however, describe ' lenti- 

 cular swellings ' with a 'reticulated surface,' which I 

 have never seen, and siDore-like bodies within the 

 mycelium, which is clearly an error of observation. 

 The authors also refer their plant to Sderotiiim stipi- 

 tatum, and they say they can find no ' important 

 difference ' to distinguish this latter plant from their 

 coal fungi. Of course, Sclerotium is not a fungus at 

 all, but a mass of condensed mycelium, and the 

 Cramlington plants do not resemble Sclerotia. 



" One of the most instructive groups of threads 

 and fruit, or, more properly speaking, mycelia and 

 zoosporangia (or oogonia), as seen within the vascular 

 axis of the Lepidodendron, is shown in fig. 204, en- 

 larged 250 diameters. Beginning with the mycelium. 



