The Present Position of Palaeozoic Botan}-. 145 



and lias proposed the name Urophhjctifes Oliueriamis for the fossil 

 specimen. 



It is probable, as Prof. Oliver has suggested, that a careful 

 examination of petrified material by a qualified mj'cologist would 

 result in a very considerable increase of our knowledge of Palaeozoic 

 Fungi. At present there are no more than isolated observations to 

 record. 



BBYOPHYTA. The Palaeozoic records of this class of plants, 

 to which some botanists have assigned so important a place in the 

 evolution of the Vegetable Kingdom, are both scanty and doubtful. In 

 the Lower Carboniferous of Scotland Mr. K i d s t o n has found several 

 specimens of a large dichotomous thallus, with a distinct midrib ; the 

 fossil, wich is referred to the provisional genus 3farchantites, certainly 

 much resembles the larger thalloid Liverworts; similar specimens 

 have been described from still older rocks. 



As regards the Musci the evidence is equally meagre, and also 

 dependent on resemblance in habit. The best example is a fossil 

 named 3fuscites polytricliaceus by Renault and Zeiller, discovered 

 by them in the Upper Coal -Measures of Commentry. The plant recalls 

 the Polytrichaceae in its habit, and in the presence of fine longi- 

 tudinal furrows on the stem. 



In the absence of any evidence as to reproductive organs or 

 anatomical structure, it cannot be said that the presence either of 

 Hepaticae or of true Mosses in the Palaeozoic rocks has yet been 

 demonstrated. It is remarkable that no traces of either group have 

 yet been found in the petrified Carboniferous material, crowded as it 

 is with all kinds of vegetable remains, in which the most delicate 

 tissues are often preserved. Minute leaves and twigs, which at first 

 sight might suggest the presence of Mosses, are common enough, but 

 have always proved, on closer examination, to belong to vascular 

 plants, usually Lycopodiaceous. In the floras represented by the 

 petrified material, it appears certain that Bryophyta, even if they 

 existed, played no important part. In fact the fossil records, as a 

 whole, lend no support to the view, so often maintained on purely 

 theoretical grounds, that the vascular plants owed their origin to a 

 Bryophytic ancestry. It would be rash to lay too much stress on 

 negative evidence, but in the present state of our knowledge the 

 question whether the Brj^ophyta are a primitive class of plants or of 

 relatively late origin, must be regarded as an open one. 



We now pass on to our principal subject, the Vascular plants of 

 the Palaeozoic period. 



Progressus rei botanicae I. 



10 



