488 FOSSIL FUNGI 



IMPLICATIONS 



The habit of procuring a livelihood by appropriating it from 

 other organisms or bv scavenging is usually considered to be de- 

 grading to both the individual and the race, and it may lead 

 to extinction. The habit of obtaining food by parasitism, sapro- 

 phvtism, or symbiosis among fungi therefore becomes of interest 

 because of its antiquity. In spite of this habit the race has sur- 

 vived with little modification, as is shown by the resemblance be- 

 tween fossilized species and present-day forms. In contrast, vast 

 faunas and autotrophic floras have been unable to survive compe- 

 tition and the vicissitudes of geological climatic changes. The 

 extinction of dinosaurs and of the progenitors of modern seed 

 plants bears witness to this fact. No evidence is at hand to show- 

 that the rapacity 7 of parasitic fungi can be used to account for the 

 disappearance of any races of plants or animals. From the be- 

 ginning their motto seems to have been, "Live and let live." This 

 adjustment by fungi to their environment, therefore, must be 

 pronounced a successful one of a high order by any standard of 

 measurement that can be applied. 



The antiquity of fungi also raises again the question of their 

 origin, whether they came from the Algae or from one or more 

 separate and distinct phylogenetic lines. The sum of geological 

 evidence appears to favor the conclusion that they have been dis- 

 tinct from the beginning and should not be placed in the same 

 phylum with the algae. 



LITERATURE CITED 



Berry, E. YV., "Remarkable fossil fungi," MycoL, 8: 73-79, 1916. 



Ellis, D., "Fossil micro-organisms from the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks 



of Great Britain," Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 35: 110-132, 1915. 

 "Phvcomvcetous fungi from the English Lower Coal Measures," Proc. 



Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 38: 130-145, 1918. 

 Hirmer, Max (with the collaboration of Julius Pia and William Troll), 



Handbuch der Palaobotanik, Vol. I. 708 pp. 1927. (Vide pp. 43, 



112-131.) 

 Hollick, A., "A new fossil polvpore, Pseudopolyporus carbonicus, gen. et sp. 



nov.," MycoL, 2:93-94, 1910. 

 James, J. F., "Notes on fossil fungi," /. MycoL, 7; 268-273, 1893. 



