AGE OF FOSSIL FUNGI 411 



to be 500 million years or 2000 million years is certainly of little 

 consequence to the mycologist. 



AGE OF FOSSIL FUNGI 



Seward (1933), one of the world's foremost students of fossil 

 plants, writes as follows on this subject: "One thing is certain: 

 from the Devonian period onwards and even from a more remote 

 age there were parasitic and saprophytic fungi . . . which so far 

 as we can tell differed in no essential respects from living represen- 

 tatives of this class. We can safely assume that bacteria and many 

 other fungi are entitled to be included among the most ancient 

 members of the plant kingdom." James (1893) has expressed the 

 opinion that evidences of fungi need not be looked for until the 

 Devonian period. 



Indirect evidence must be employed in determining how long 

 before the Devonian period plants could have existed. The seas 

 during the Cambrian period contained an abundance of animals, 

 and fossils in Cambrian rocks reveal something of the multitude 

 and variety of these animals. Since fossil plants are lacking, how- 

 ever, it must be assumed that plants existed to serve as food for 

 the multitude of animals. Then, as one descends in time toward 

 and into the Pre-Cambrian period in an effort to find a common 

 "dawn of life" for plants and animals, the tracery terminates, and 

 he is compelled, as Seward (1933) has been, to the following con- 

 clusion: "We do not know when and how life began; we cannot 

 measure the rate of the early stages of evolution, nor can we ac- 

 cept as proof of the existence of plants much of the evidence that 

 has been adduced, and not infrequently presented with a confi- 

 dence worthy of a better cause." 



If one ascends in time from the Devonian period, fossil plants, 

 including fungi, would be anticipated in all subsequent periods. 

 They have been found to exist, "perhaps most abundantly in Car- 

 boniferous rocks formed during the Pennsvlvanian and Permian 

 periods, when ferns, fern allies, and pteridosperms flourished. 

 Fossil plants occur throughout the rocks of the Triassic and 

 Jurassic periods, when gymnosperms predominated, and through- 

 out the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, when angiosperms came 

 into ascendancy. Species from the early Mesozoic period sur- 

 vived and developed, as is indicated by fossils in all subsequent 



